To my American colleagues who went to the seminar on ‘sports integrity’ at the National Press Club on June 24th, You saw a presentation by a man with little credibility in sports integrity and two other men who have failed. You attended a presentation sponsored by the Qatari sports establishment. This is a group that is suspected by sports fans around the world of corruption in securing the rights to the World Cup tournament of 2022. This is a group that...
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...
The links between organized crime bike gangs and the IOC/FIFA Okay, everyone calm down. This blog is not about Thomas Bach’s previously unknown (and utterly fictional) history as a Hells Angels member or Sepp Blatter’s non-role as a Bandido drug enforcer. Rather it is about the reason why those nine motorcycle gang members were murdered in Waco, Texas and how it is linked to a key issue around international sports organizations. Brand protection. The superficial reason for the killings last weekend was...
It is called ‘media spin’. If you missed the story, a man who is involved in the Qatari anti-corruption agency for sports – Chris Eaton – is now claiming in the media that he is shocked about a new book that investigates whether the Qataris may have been offering bribes to win the rights to host the 2022 World Cup. Eaton has even said FIFA should investigate “if there is new evidence whatever it shows and whoever it implicates, then FIFA...
