Submitted by Pachamama
As the World Cup of Soccer enters the knock out phase we are closer to a declared winner, on the field. But regardless of the nation state that will hoist the trophy, FIFA will always be the real winner. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, as founded in 1904, has grown up to be a leading beneficiary of the generalized misguidance of the vast majority of human beings wanting to believe in something. For the structure of FIFA represents God-like powers which are not unlike those of the Holy See, in particular, and religion more generally.
That structure makes sure that any country hosting the games are guaranteed to do this on the backs of the poor, the dispossessed, the national treasury. These games have never, financially, benefited any country but FIFA has more than a billion dollars in the Bank and has an ability to tax nations without representation. While stadia all over the world remain underutilized, empty and decaying as a result of these very world games. Ask the South Africans! That bank balance will increase from the series of religious revivals now going on in Brazilian cities. And this business model under the rubric of a false social formation remains as persistent as ever, if not more so. Its simple, they privatize incomes and publicize the debt. This is corporate welfare.
This nascent form of power and control would make the political apparatchiks of ancient Rome envious. No other unaccountable organization in the history of mankind has been able to, conterminously, avoid paying taxes, avoid national laws, impose conditions on all national governments, impose rent on world nations like a Catholic Church and for decades avoid inquiries about corruption at the highest levels. This smacks of the rampant paedophilia in its sister organization – the Catholic Church.
Evidence has recently emerged that the award of the games to Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) were ‘influenced’ (determined) by corruption in high places. But still there are no demands from anywhere for prosecutions largely because of the fear of FIFA sanctions on national governments. Governments which are largely complicit in the racketeering, organized crime and corruption that is the currency of the realm at this so-called non-governmental organization. The criminal-in-chief Sepp Blatter is himself a representative of a culture that pretends to be one thing when it is really an agent of imperialism, ownership and control without any corresponding and real social responsibilities. This is what democracy of 2014 has degenerated to.
One may want to broaden the argument and contend that there are no real difference between FIFA and any other international sporting body. Then we may counter by claiming that in cycling, for example, the international body, to its credit, was able to present a patina of accountability in the case of Lance Armstrong. Of course, the international cycling union has less relative power than FIFA. Maybe this was the reason this fig leaf was presented. However, they are all actors for and by corporates to maintain control and to advance certain economic interests.
Over recent decades the Caribbean has seen its fair share of FIFA maladministration. Our own Jack Warner has been connected to bribery allegations that relate to payments for votes. Some years ago Randy Harris, in Barbados, was censored for daring to approach a national court for redress to an internal football association matter. In the case of Qatar, the holder of the 2022 games, there is persistent and growing evidence that that regime has been engaged in near-slavery conditions for tens of thousands of migrant worker from South East Asia, who are to build the infrastructure for the 2022 games, and has done so for decades. But there is a lack of a consciousness at FIFA that will determined that these acts are anathema to the interest of the peoples of the world.
And we are again at Brazil. Where favelas that housed the poor were destroyed to make room for new construction. Where the persistent protest of Brazilians against the World Cup are largely ignored by mass media. They have long argued that the World Cup of Soccer will create a construction boom for real estate oligarchs and a bust for the poor, the homeless, the dispossessed. But FIFA is unable to estimate the damage it does to most of the peoples of the world through World Cup Soccer. Unfortunately for us, we no longer have our clearest voice, Socrates, the great Brazilian player and activist for social justice to remind us of our better selves, caring for the people, as a primary responsibility. Socrates would be forever the enemy of the gangsters who rule world soccer. These FIFA gangster were always the real winners and will continue to win ever other cup everywhere.
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