Weekly Chart: How Corrupt Is Soccer in the Americas?
Weekly Chart: How Corrupt Is Soccer in the Americas?
Most FIFA members receive $1 million a year, but only 10 out of 45 national soccer associations in the Western Hemisphere report annual finances.
On December 3, Swiss authorities, in coordination with U.S. officials, arrested the two top people in soccer governance in North and South America—the presidents of Concacaf and Conmebol—in Zürich, Switzerland. Authorities also indicted 14 other high-ranking executives from the Americas, including the former president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, Ricardo Teixeira, whose close links to former FIFA president (and his former father-in-law) João Havelange are well known.
During that week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that the former head of the Colombian association and a former member of FIFA’s Executive Committee, Luis Bedoya—who had recently quit his post and confessed that he had accepted bribes—was the owner of a secret, $1 million bank account abroad.
Though allegations of corruption in football are not new, a new report from Transparency International places the issue in the context of global football corruption.
Only 14 FIFA members—about 7 percent—worldwide scored a perfect 4 points, and Canada was the only one in the Americas to do so. Eighty-seven FIFA members scored a dismal 0. Eighteen of those are in the Americas (17 in Concacaf and one, Peru, in Conmebol).
Holly K. Sonneland contributed to this article.
