Canadian Soccer Association – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

13DecDecember 13, 2016

Canada’s Shame

The success of Toronto FC aside, Canadian soccer remains an abject embarrassment — not because of quality of play, but because European police and sports officials say a lower-level Canadian league remains a hot spot of corruption and match-fixing. “You are supposed to be honest people,” Kee, a Chinese-Malaysian bookie who runs an illegal gambling site in Kuala Lumpur, said last year. “How can you be honest when so many fixed soccer games are going on in your country?” These accusations...

12MayMay 12, 2016

King of the Mediocre

On the bright side, he has never actually been convicted of fraud, racketeering or money laundering. He has also never been arrested for corruption. No has ever caught him on hidden camera offering bribes or election gifts. Ummmm... well, thats about it really. The news that Canada's own Victor Montagliani was elected president of CONCACAF, the continental confederation in FIFA representing North, Central America and the Caribbean, is another underwhelming sign of the lack of reform inside FIFA. For international readers here...

15OctOctober 15, 2015

7 Things to Know about the FIFA Scandal

Now that Sepp Blatter has been driven off into the sunset from FIFA, it is time to reflect on the long-sorry, scandal ridden years of his reign. Seven things then that we have learned: 1) The Watergate of Sports Stories: It was not ESPN, nor any of the other big sports channels or well-established sports journalists who broke the FIFA story. The real heroes are a small collection of journalists who are largely outsiders. As the big sports media empires frantically...

05JunJune 5, 2015

The Scramble for Cover of the Long Silent

1- So it begins.I write of the mad scramble for cover of the silent sports journalists, the creepy academics and the cringing consultants who said little against FIFA or CONCACAF over the last three decades. My least favourite are that gang of academics who gathered around the Sorbonne/ICSS to “research match-fixing”. Almost incredibly they linked themselves with both FIFA (via Interpol) and the Qatari sports establishment. It is difficult to find organizations with less credibility in the public's eyes...

03JunJune 3, 2015

10 Thoughts on Sepp Blatter’s Resignation

1- There are lots of people in the FIFA world who are far, far worse than Blatter. 2- It is possible that after the next FIFA election we could wind up with a president who will make us feel nostalgic for Blatter. 3- Blatter and his group at Zurich ran effective protection for national football federations around the world when they faced criminal investigations for corruption. From Nigeria to Iran to Greece – when governments, police forces and law enforcement have...

27MayMay 27, 2015

The End of FIFA’s Credibility

Finally. Finally. Finally. This must be the end to Sepp Blatter. This must be the end to the reign of corruption at FIFA. Never has the sports world seen such a spectacle. Officials being carted off for arrest as they arrive for an international conference. Can FIFA ever regain its credibility? A couple of thoughts. 1) Full kudos to Jens Weinreich and Andrew Jennings. They have been saying this for years. They said it and wrote about it when few would listen. 2) Why did it...