It all started three years ago on a sunny Swiss dawn on the banks of the Zurichsee. Baur au Lac, the unofficial official palace of world soccer, a safe haven for corruption, a celebratory respite from the arduous all expenses paid first class flight for the "untouchables" of global soccer gathering at the home of the sport. In this one morning, FIFA and its constituents lost any of the credibility that it had left with the arrest of over 20 of its members for racketeering, money laundering, and so on. You name it and they did it. Now displaced from the protection of their homelands, three of the arrested are sitting in a NYC courtroom with the same apparent smugness that led them to the very seat they occupy today. What has transpired in the courtroom in the short time this trial has been active can only be described as grandiose even for Hollywood. I am glad the trial is not getting much play outside the diehard soccer community because well it's becoming a shitty episode of Law and Order. It's a terrible look for the sport and all that love it. Yet, the FIFA trial is somehow managing to add its own unique flair in that its ramifications are being felt in a very real way in and outside of the courtroom.
The main witness in the case is an Argentinian businessman who took a plea deal based off his involvement in the bribery and laundering throughout the years. This man is fucked. No two ways about it. His life and probably the lives of his family, friends, neighbors will never be the same. He is ratting on some of the most powerful businessmen in South America. We've already had a nice glimpse into this man's future within the first week of the trial. Former Peruvian soccer official Manuel Burga is currently being accused of intimidating a witness after making TWO throat cutting gestures at the witness during his testimony. His lawyer claims that his skin condition on his throat forces him to make gestures to his neck area to manage the discomfort. Get this man a bottle of Lubriderm or put the witnesses family in protection stat because you don't come back from a throat cut motion. Once you go full throat cut, you are basically forced into action. Just ask my man the Undertaker.
You don't go 18-1 in Wrestlemania without backing up your throat cuts. Now imagine being up there on the stand and seeing this not once but TWICE. On the second throat cut, the witness just started crying. CRYING. A grown man crying in a courtroom just knowing what all this means. I do have to say though that this witness really has brass ones staying up there knowing each word is putting men like Burga further and further into a US jail cell and his livelihood more and more into question.
Now, you are thinking to yourself. How could this get any more interesting? It's just a court case for crying out loud. Well reader, one innocuous throwaway line from our friend Mr. Witness seems to be the reason why an Argentine lawyer committed suicide last week. He makes a mere situational reference to Argentina's "Football for All" program association to bribery and boom a man with a family ends up throwing up the deuces to the world hara kari style. He pulls a Pablo Escobar (shout out Narcos) and says I'd rather die in my country then rot in a US jail. HE WASN'T EVEN IMPLICATED IN THE CASE!
So this now puts us at two throat cuts and one suicide. Where to next? Let's go with murder for $500, Alex.
This trail is barely a week old. We now have the mobster trifecta in that a potential murder may be tied to the wide-reaching and sinister spider-web that is the FIFA trail. This past week a VP of one of the implicated companies for handing out bribes was found shot dead on a Mexico City street. Now, as the BBC put it, they do not know if there is any connection of this death to the trial. Could it have been a robbery gone wrong in Mexico City where they have one of the highest ratio of cops to citizens (shout out Wikipedia) in the world because of all the crime? Sure. Would you be surprised if this murder was very much tied to the corruption charges being heard against very powerful South American businessmen? Exactly.
At what point three years ago would anyone think that a court case involving soccer officials responsible for over hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes being tried in the historically soccer mad country of the US of A while people are suspiciously dropping dead around the Americas? None people. That's how many. None. I don't even know if that sentence makes any sense because I still struggle to wrap my head around the calamity that is the FIFA trial. You also have to realize that this is the trial for only 3 of the 20 odd people involved. We've had some plead guilty already but still have a handful of these bastions of morality off praying that extradition won't get them.
The whole thing is extraordinarily surreal. It has ceased to be purely comedic in nature, which is a shame. We got people dying because of this garbage. It's not to throw away what these guys have done in the past. They acted criminally and should be punished but by no means should we have dead bodies over soccer. It's a sport. That's it. It's not life or death like some people would force you to believe. I honestly hope all that committed illegal acts will go to jail. I also hope that this trial delivers more hilarious storylines but let's take it down a notch fellas. Light and amusing not sick and morbid.
PS.
We still have mountains of people roaming around free from this trial. We have Sepp Blatter living within 5 miles of the FIFA offices still asking for invites to FIFA events. This trial is scratching the surface of what there is to come. We are on the American leg of the case and god willing we see a swift move over to Europe with the likes of Valke, Blatter, Platini in front of the fire.
PPS.
The only thing that would make this whole case more intriguing would be the re-introduction of our good pal, Jack Warner. Even in the face of his long time friend Uncle Sepp back in Zurich, Jack Warner was probably the most delusional, enigmatic, and unintentionally humorous aspect of the FIFA fallout. Gentleman Jack is still sitting in Trinidad developing his Youtube Channel, stealing the Inception music, switching camera angles like a boss.
while politely refusing to spit on reporters
and building the brand "Jack Warner TV"
We need our man back in front of the camera. He is charisma personified spitting hot fire from his green screen in Trinidad. I need more Jack and I need it now.
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