The arrests Wednesday of nine senior officials of FIFA, among 14 people indicted by the United States Department of Justice on corruption charges, shook soccer’s world governing body as it met in Zurich for its annual Congress. America’s new top law officer, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, told reporters that one FIFA official alone had accepted more than $10 million in bribes.
In one sense, this is no surprise: Allegations of corruption at FIFA go back decades. FIFA itself has long since admitted, for example, that its officials took kickbacks from a Swiss company that marketed broadcast rights to the World Cup between 1992 and 2000. But the idea of F.B.I. agents and other American law enforcement officials arriving like latter-day Eliot Nesses to purge soccer of the mob had dramatic, even romantic, appeal.
It won’t last.
Those who hope that the Justice Department’s intervention will be the broom that sweeps graft out of global soccer are in for a disappointment. Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president since 1998, has faced accusations of coordinating a network of bribery and corruption inherited from his predecessor, João Havelange, who was widely credited with creating the system. That system is deeply ingrained.
The first obstacle is that FIFA is ultimately controlled by its Congress, which is expected on Friday to re-elect Mr. Blatter to another term. FIFA is a private organization, a kind of club: Its 209 members are representatives of the national associations that belong to FIFA. Mr. Blatter has based his power on cultivating close personal ties with these officials.
Cronyism is a problem precisely because the people at the top make sure that no one can afford to challenge them. Without doubt, many of those beholden to Mr. Blatter would have much to lose if the books were all opened.
Moreover, FIFA’s Congress frequently threatens to suspend national associations in countries where the government is perceived to be interfering. If FIFA feels under attack by the American Justice Department, it might decide to retaliate by suspending the United States Soccer Federation. The whistle-blowers could find themselves isolated.
And FIFA has a fiefdom. It spends its money to support the game of soccer globally, claiming to redistribute almost three-quarters of its earnings. Under Mr. Havelange and Mr. Blatter, FIFA shifted power away from the traditionally dominant nations of Europe and toward the developing soccer nations, especially in Asia and Africa. This meant providing development funds, as well as allocating places in the World Cup finals on criteria other than sporting merit. Many people in these nations feel indebted to those who run FIFA; they will not necessarily endorse an American-led anticorruption drive.
Contrary to appearances, when the Justice Department talks of $150 million in bribes, FIFA is not so very wealthy. Its annual income over the last four-year World Cup cycle was just over $1.4 billion, which is less than half the annual income generated by N.F.L. broadcast contracts in America, and considerably less than the $2.4 billion divided between the 20 clubs in England’s Premier League. How greedy does FIFA look, when European clubs alone generate revenues of over $15 billion per year?
There will certainly be politically motivated resistance to an American trial. Russia has already stated its opposition; with a newly developing interest in the game, China, too, might find it opportune to challenge the process. A Justice Department official declared that “this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation,” but how much support will there be in the rest of the world for the United States paralyzing FIFA with a lengthy criminal investigation?
There has always been a thin line between corruption and legitimate business networking. Is taking a client out for a round of golf a form of corruption? It depends on the context and the outcome. The point here is not that the egregious kickbacks and bribes are in any way acceptable, but that many people of influence in FIFA might feel personally threatened by a long-running campaign against corruption. An open-ended probe — and one conducted by a country where soccer is far less central to national culture than it is for many members — will surely drive them to close ranks.
It is self-evident that the courts alone cannot conduct a wholesale reform of soccer’s governance. It’s also unlikely that co-opting national soccer federations as an arm of government would work, either in the United States or anywhere else for that matter. Ultimately, it is the national federations, which are represented in the FIFA Congress, that will have to decide on any process of reform.
The model for this is probably the International Olympic Committee. Widely seen as corrupt at the time of the Salt Lake City scandal, it has done much to reform itself. The difference, perhaps, is that because the I.O.C. remains a sufficiently patrician organization — its members are co-opted by existing members rather than representing any particular interest — there was a consensus for change among the wealthier, mostly European, members. FIFA is a different case because it represents a global coalition consisting largely of developing countries whose attitudes toward the exercise of power are different.
This week, the Justice Department put the considerable weight of the American criminal justice system behind the voices of those exasperated by the egregious corruption that seems rooted in FIFA. As always, on the first day, this enterprise seems wholly justified and virtuous; victory is surely assured. Whether everything will seem so clear after several years of being bogged down in procedural details and the inevitable politicking is very doubtful.
Stefan Szymanski, a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan’s School of Kinesiology, is the author of Money and Soccer: A Soccernomics Guide.