After a wave of arrests at the global soccer body FIFA, CTV National News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme spoke with sports corruption expert Declan Hill, author of The Fix: Soccer and Organized Crime.
Why in the end did it take American law enforcement to blow the lid off this scandal?
My sense was that European police have simply been too in awe, had too much reverence for FIFA and the game of soccer to really get serious about the allegations, which have been floating around this organization for years, so the Americans came in and did a thorough and comprehensive investigation.
There’s a criminal investigation into how the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were awarded. FIFA says those agreements stand, but should we believe anything FIFA says today?
Myself and hundreds of millions of soccer fans around the world have a great difficulty believing anything that FIFA says.
On Friday Sepp Blatter, the current president of FIFA, will almost certain be re-elected and the status quo going forward will essentially be the same.
Where have Canadian soccer officials been through all this?
Look, I’m hoping they change, but for the past 20 years they’ve been key members supporting some of the people – not in a corrupt way – but simply not blowing the whistle, not raising their voices.
A great Canadian lawyer once came into FIFA, in contrast, and said ‘this isn’t going to do’ and walked out of the organization.
Canadian soccer officials have just not been willing to stand up and say, ‘look this status quo is not working for the sport.’
