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A
Choice hotels get you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too Comfort Inn, it's calling your name Save on the stay oh, and free waffles are yours to claim well, I hope you like my little song book. Direct@joycehotels.com Gianni Infantino and President Donald Trump are two P's in the sports washing pod.
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B
Cronyism and corruption starts to creep into FIFA.
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A
That put a lot of fans in danger. Thousands of people died. As the world is becoming more authoritarian, so is FIFA.
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B
Is ICE going to be involved in the 2026 World Cup?
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A
ICE will play a significant role.
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B
World Cups have been orchestrated to bolster the power of leaders.
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A
That's a beautiful piece of. Can I keep it? If sports washing is deflecting attention, what does President Trump have to deflect our attention from?
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B
Racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering. I'm not talking about the mob, I'm talking about FIFA. Custodians of the beautiful game. Now, I know you're looking at me thinking, this is clearly a woman who knows her football, never misses a match of the day, doesn't shut up about var. Shockingly, you'd be wrong. But the power, politics and corruption behind the game, that is my bag. Football is the world's most popular sport, so it's no surprise that the FIFA World cup is the most watched sport event on earth. FIFA has more members than the un, more followers than any one religion, and it's one of the most controversial sports organisations in the world. Historically, world Cups have been orchestrated to bolster the power of leaders. The 1934 World cup in Mussolini's Italy, 1978 Argentina under military dictatorship, Russia, 2018, Qatar, 2022 come to mind. And players themselves have been used as political pawns to deflect attention from domestic problems. So despite decades of allegations of sports washing, corruption, cavorting with autocrats and pricing fans out of the people's game, why is it no scandal ever seems to damage the machine? FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904 by 7 European Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The point was to establish common rules in order to expand the game globally. A few years later, the HQ was established in Zurich, Switzerland, where it is today. To be a member of FIFA, you've got to be a member of one of the six confederations spanning the world. Jules Boykoff is a professor who's been described as the finest theorist of sports. Mega events like the World cup in the English speaking world. He's also a former professional soccer player. Football for our English viewers, and he loves the game.
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A
This is arguably the most politically charged World cup in the history of the event. So as a political scientist, I thought, hey, I should probably sink my brain fully into this.
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B
That is quite a statement when we look at the history of World Cups. So let's start at the beginning. What was the first World cup in 1930 like?
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A
Well, first of all, it was very small. I mean, they weren't particularly ambitious. They only had 13 teams at the time, 18 matches that took place in Uruguay. And the president of Uruguay at that time very much embraced it as an opportunity to show the world what Uruguay was capable of doing, bringing everyone together. But it's nothing like the grand tournament that we'll see this summer of some 48 teams, that's for sure.
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B
Who were the first dictators to recognize the value that a mega event like a World cup, although less mega back then, I grant you, could have for them. Politically.
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A
Politically, yeah, that's a really interesting question because it happened right away when the World cup started only four years later in Italy. Benito Mussolini used the World cup that he was hosting in Italy to. To what some people today call sports washing. I think it was sort of a prototype of what we're seeing today in certain respects. But the main thing is that Benito Mussolini recognized that athletes were popular. And for him they represented the fascist new man, this sort of macho, aggressive, athletic type that he could use to try to push forth his view of fascism. He often talked about the players on the Italian men's national team as what he called the soldiers of sport. So you can see he was thinking about things militaristically, politically, and, you know, those soldiers of sport kind of created space for the soldiers of war in the sense that the soldiers of sport under Mussolini, they won the tournament, so they walked away with the trophy. And il Duce, the Benito Mussolini even created, created a special massive trophy, the Copa del Duce, that they also walked away with. And so that was one of the early instances. And then only two years later, in 1936, when Adolf Hitler hosted the Summer Olympics, that was the first time that soccer made an appearance at the Olympics. And honestly, Hitler wasn't all that interested in sports. And he had to be convinced by his propaganda minister Goebbels. The elements of sports watching have a long history, and dictators have long seen the value in these big Popular sporting events.
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B
And perhaps for anybody watching, we should say at this juncture what sportswashing is. So my understanding is it's a way for governments and individuals in governments and for a country to improve a tarnished reputation via these sports events.
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A
Absolutely. So for me, as a scholar, sportswashing is when political leaders use sports to deflect attention from chronic social problems at home and human rights woes at home and use the event to look legitimate and important on the world stage, to maybe advance their political agenda, to make economic connections, to make some money for themselves or perhaps their country.
- [06:32]
B
You paraphrase Clausewitz in your book, and I think you say sports. Sports is politics by other means. Striking at this point. Striking. That was an inadvertent football pun. Look at me, Jules. I'm learning. What is it it about a World cup and how it changed over time that makes it so attractive to leaders with authoritarian impulses?
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A
Well, the World cup is the most popular sporting event on earth, and it's been extraordinarily popular for a long time. Soccer or football is the people's game, and so people around the world play it. One of the beautiful things about the sport, and it happens just to be my favorite sport, one of the beautiful things is you don't need that much equipment. You know, you need something resembling a ball that's roughly round in shape and some space to kick it around. And so it's long been the people's game. And if authoritarians want to get the support of the people, then it makes sense that they would embrace the people's game.
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B
Ticket prices have been hiked so dramatically over the years. Where does that money go, and what impact has that had on the people's game?
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A
Well, we're getting a frontal look at the FIFA greed machine at this particular World cup, with prices for tickets essentially going so high that everyday people just simply can't afford to go. At previous World Cups, for example, South Africa in 2010 or in Brazil in 2014, large tranches of tickets were set aside for locals at a very low rate. That's just not happening with this World cup in the United States. After a lot of public furor over the price of tickets, FIFA finally said, okay, yeah, we'll create some more $60 tickets for people, but those are very difficult to get. Instead, what you're seeing is ever escalating prices. FIFA is using something new in this World cup called dynamic pricing. And hey, Bianca, that might sound kind of nice. It's dynamic. We like dynamic things.
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B
Yeah, it does sound like a Euphemism, and it is.
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A
It very much is. What it basically means is they will extract the maximum amount of money that they can out of the ticket buyer. And so ticket prices are just through the roof. That's even from FIFA, just using the demand to create higher prices. Then there's the secondary market. So, like, if you bought a ticket and you wanted to resell it in the United States, there's no ceiling. You could buy your ticket for $500 and then turn around and try to resell it for 5 million if you wanted to. In fact, FIFA wouldn't mind if you sold it for 5 million, because they take 15% from every seller and 15% from every buyer for every ticket sold on the secondary market. So this has caused a lot of controversy in the United States, where ticket prices are high. Now, this is totally a political question, because Mexico, for example, another one of the hosts, they by law say you can't raise the price of a ticket in the secondary resale market above the face value of the ticket. So you don't see that sort of legalized ticket touting that you see in the sort of more hyper capitalist usa, if you will.
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B
When would you say that cronyism and corruption starts to creep into FIFA?
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A
I like the way you're talking about it in terms of. It does sort of creep and grow through time. I mean, I think a pivotal moment would have been the reign of President Joo Havalange, who took over FIFA in the 1970s. Because what he started to do was he started to spread the money far and wide to all sorts of football association leaders around the world. He would pay for them to fly to FIFA meetings. He would give them lavish expense accounts. He set up corporate sponsorships with companies like Adidas and others. So the money was really flowing in, and the money shuffle was getting more furious. And so he started that kind of what I would call like a sort of clientelistic patronage network at that time. And it really gained the loyalty of all these FIFA members that were like, yeah, I'm living the high life, getting to fly to all these places, getting these amazing per diems, walking away. Sometimes, you know, unfortunately, there's some evidence that there was some illegal shenanigans happening and people were embezzling funds. The next president, his name is Set Blatter, continued with that. And your. Your viewers might remember Set Blatter because he was brought down in a huge controversy of corruption in 2015, when there were allegations of bribery around the 2018 and 2022 World Cups that ended up in Russia and Qatar. And there was also some serious allegations of bribery in regards to broadcasting contracts for television. So he was brought down. And then in his place came a guy named Gianni Infantino, who we're seeing all over the news right now, Donald Trump's bff. And he runs FIFA today. Infantino does. And he has basically taken that and emerged through the creep that you called into what I would kind of call like legalized corruption in the sense that everything seems to be above board. They bring in these billions of dollars, and he spreads them to all these football associations around the world in exchange for their compliance. Like, Bianca, if you ever need a new job, you might want to try to get on the FIFA Council. This group of around 37 people, and they make every year 20250 to $300,000 for attending, like 2 to 4.
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B
Okay, back to the biggest corruption scandal, which hit in 2015. As you've just touched on. What did the evidence ultimately show?
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A
Well, some of the evidence never even came out in public. There was a report issued around the bribery for 2018 and 2022 that kind of soft pedaled some of the criticism then. But basically there seems to be pretty strong evidence that there was money exchanged for votes that led to the people being hosting those 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
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B
Apart from the corruption scandal associated with those bids, the World Cups themselves in Qatar and Russia were heavily criticized. What was your view on hosting in those countries and what that enabled?
- [12:53]
A
Well, I was among the group of people that was critical of FIFA for handing these events to Vladimir Putin in Russia and then to Qatar, because there was a lot of anti LGBTQ sentiment in Russia that clashed mightily with stated FIFA principles. Russia and Duma had passed a law supported by Vladimir Putin that outlawed being gay in public, essentially, and that put a lot of fans in danger there. People died creating World cup stadiums in Russia as well. But that was taken to the extreme four years later. A lot of people are, of course, critical of the fact that thousands of people died in Qatar. Migrant workers constructing stadiums and other buildings in Qatar to get ready for the World Cups. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition, 100% whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that's sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker Official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26 so there was a lot of criticism around those events, and yet the leaders from both of those countries use sports to deflect attention and to be popular on the world stage. Now, one thing I just want to say really quickly is that when we ask if sports washing works a lot of time, people mean, does it work on a global audience? And yes, that's part of it. I think you could argue Qatar benefited. You can see their tourism numbers after the hosting the World cup go up and up. You can see that.
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B
And it normalizes other events there, right? I would imagine too.
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A
Absolutely. It shows the capacity of the country to host big events and then it normalizes hosting there. With Russia, though, it was a little different. I don't think it was necessarily the international audience that was the focus and it was more the domestic audience. Because Vladimir Putin also hosted the 2014 Sochi Olympics and then the World cup right after the Sochi Olympics when his popularity ratings were at an all time high of 86%, he used that popularity to invade the Crimea. So, you know, we're sitting here talking about sports and politics, but it has real world effects. It can actually embolden leaders to engage in acts of war.
- [15:23]
B
I was going to ask you if you think FIFA, given it's such a juggernaut and is making these decisions where games are hosted and watched by billions of people, has it exerted an impact on the global order?
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A
Has FIFA had an impact on the global order? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely no. FIFA is a major world player. You can just look at the itinerary of Gianni Infantino and where he goes. He is essentially the head of a non state, a para state that many people in North America are now feeling is much like a parasite, quite frankly. But yes, absolutely. Gianni Infantino was recently at the Board of Peace meetings. He was, he goes all around. He was at Sharm El Sheikh when they signed an agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government for peace. So I mean, he is basically a sort of de facto world leader that is shaping the way that history plays out.
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B
I keep thinking about this having read your work. So a parastate for our audience is basically an entity that acts as a state without international recognition. How powerful is FIFA compared to other states?
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A
Well, compared to like the United States, for example, my home country, not nearly as powerful. I mean, just we're talking billions instead of trillions and trillions. But in terms of influence, in terms of global eyeballs that are paying attention to them as a para state, paying close attention to them and their decisions, it's actually quite high. So I think it's difficult to compare them to like a real state like China, the United States, France, etc. But that's not to say that they don't have cultural sway and power in ways that aren't immediately obvious on the surface.
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B
What is the relationship between Infantino and President Trump?
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A
Gianni Infantino and President Donald Trump are two P's in the sportswashing pod. Another way of looking at it is Infantino is sports washing enabler number one. Both of them have a predilection for political spectacle. Both of them have a predilection for being around rich folks, for living the lavish life. And they appear to actually just kind of get along, maybe perhaps share a politics. But it is, let's just say that Infantino has handed the keys to the world's most popular event to someone in Donald Trump who we don't really know what's going to happen. Let me just back up to make the point. We meaning in 2022, when Qatar hosted the World cup, two days before the event started, Qatar said, you know what? We're not going to allow alcohol in the stadiums for these events. And FIFA went along with it. Despite the fact they had a huge contract with Budweiser for some $75 million. They went along with it. And that's because right when the event is about to start, when it's impossible to relocate the matches, the host country has a ton of power. Now shimmy forward to 2026. That could actually be a scary prospect where President Donald Trump all of a sudden has a lot more power. He might not be talking openly about sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example, into stadiums to patrol. But what if he decides two days before that? Actually, yeah, you know what? He does want to do that. So we're walking into a situation that could be quite combustible politically.
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B
Is Ice going to be involved in the 2026 World Cup?
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A
Ice will be involved, absolutely. The Trump administration has consistently said that ICE will play a significant role at this World Cup. The question of whether they will be performing raids or mass arrests is still unbelievably an open question. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security's new secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, was asked about this directly, and he wouldn't take anything off the table. He said that ICE would be doing ICE things for people in the United States. That's pretty alarming in the sense that ICE has been running around from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, oftentimes wearing masks and grabbing people, even killing US Citizens, even arresting Native Americans. I mean, the levels of irony there is just, you know, bracing. So that's one of the big hope and questions that we didn't hope to have be an open question right on the edge of starting this World Cup.
- [19:49]
B
Is there evidence that a host country that's putting on a World cup uses it in some circumstances to expand the security apparatus via surveillance? I don't know, deportations, because you need beefed up security to host a mega event, and then what happens to that afterwards?
- [20:10]
A
I would argue that that is one of the major shadow legacies, if you will, of these sports, mega events like the World cup and the Olympics, that essentially local and national police forces use the events like their own private cash machine to basically get all the special weapons and laws that they would never be able to get during normal political times. They don't put those special weapons back in the box and return them to sender after the event. They become part of normalized policing in the wake of the event. The laws often aren't rescinded after the event. They become part of normal lawmaking afterwards. So, yeah, I think I'm glad you mentioned this because a lot of people don't realize that these events normalize the intensification of policing. And in many places that means normalizing the intensification of racialized policing. So it actually deepens the racism in a society.
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B
It has a. Has a Trojan horse feeling about it. Does FIFA in general prefer to work with autocracies or democracies?
- [21:09]
A
Well, I would love to ask Gianni Infantino that question and see if he'd give us an honest answer. But if you look back at one of their previous General secretaries, Jerome Valka of FIFA, he stated it outright one time that, you know, it's quite a bit handier to be able to work with authoritarians. You don't have to worry about all those pesky democratic practices that often slow things down and get in the way. And, you know, if you look at Gianni Infantino, he certainly has no problem with authoritarians. And we're living in a moment of extreme change and even crisis in the United States right now when it comes to democracy. And if you don't want to take it from this political scientist, take it from three other political scientists who recently recategorized the United States as not necessarily a fully functioning democracy anymore, but an example of what they call the new competitive authoritarianism, the kind of variety we saw under Orban, Viktor Orban in Hungary for so long a time. So we're at a moment of very fast change in the United States in terms of authoritarianism. And it seems to be suiting FIFA just fine.
- [22:12]
B
You've mentioned throughout this conversation that the jewelry use of a World cup for a leader potentially to enhance popularity or influence domestically as well as internationally. How do you think the US will
- [22:27]
A
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B
and do that via the World Cup.
- [22:59]
A
Well, if sports washing is deflecting attention from conflict and controversy at home, what does President Trump have to deflect our attention from? I mean, there's the Epstein files where he's named more than a thousand times. There's the terrible ratings that he's getting for his approval these days, the lowest rating he's ever seen in either one of his terms. There's the terrible way that the war that the United States is doing with Israel is unfolding in Iran, not according to the Trumpian plans. We could talk for the rest of the show about all the things that he might be trying to deflect attention from. And this is a guy who absolutely understands the power of sport. I mean, President Trump has used sports to his political advantage more than any president in the history of the United States. He used to own a football team, not soccer, but like one of those football teams way back in the day. And he's hosting a UFC mixed martial arts fighting event three days into the World Cup. So he understands that sport is kind of a path for him to look important and powerful. And I would say that the lower his approval ratings sink, the more incentive he has to cling to sport as some sort of political life raft.
- [24:09]
B
Quick question just to set up my next question. Is FIFA avowedly apolitical? Is that what's in the statutes?
- [24:15]
A
Absolutely. In FIFA's statutes, it explicitly states that they are not to be engaging in politics.
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B
So how then do you read actions like awarding Donald Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize or Infantino being is he on Trump's Board of Peace?
- [24:31]
A
Yes, he is. Yeah, he's showing up to the meetings at least and being a participant. So how do you explain it? It's just sheer hypocrisy. And there has been some movement even inside the power halls of Congress of Soccer to push back against this. So, for example, the head of the Football association from Norway, her name is Lisa Klavnis, she has questioned whether FIFA should be engaging in handing out a peace prize because it's such a political act and she's trying to get that rescinded. Inside of FIFA, it should be said that it appears very few people inside of FIFA knew that Infantino was going to give this award to President Trump. He did not consult a bunch of people, let alone have some kind of democratic practice. And it sort of shows how as the world is becoming more authoritarian in certain ways, so is FIFA.
- [25:24]
B
World Cups present opportunities for security, to expand, for sports washing, as you've detailed, very persuasively. But there's another element too, isn't there? Because when the eyes of the world are upon a country that might want to have the opportunity to protest and make a statement, even if states are heavy handed outside of the time of the World cup, they can't be as heavy handed as they'd want to be when all of the world's journalists are there. And this opens up an opportunity for protesters. So what's the potential counter to the fact that World Cups could be used to deepen authoritarianism or bolster a state?
- [26:06]
A
Yeah, that's such a great point. And if we can backstep to 1978 and the world cup that was hosted in Argentina, led by a military junta there, they did not crack down on protests during the actual World Cup. Don't get me wrong, they were brutal beforehand and they picked up the uptick afterwards. But during the actual World cup, you had groups like Madres de la Plaza de Mayo who had much more freedom to act. Because the global media will be descending on the United States. There is a chance that the Trump administration might be a little bit more hesitant to put ice out there and start apprehending people. I'm hoping that that's the case. The only problem is that the Trump administration has definitely shown a real penchant for being a bit erratic and doing whatever the President wants to do. But here's the other thing. I mean, this is a chance for people in the United States to show people from around the world that not everybody shares the same political vision as Donald Trump and maga, and that the United States can be a very welcoming country to immigrants and to tourists from other countries. And, you know, the World cup definitely provides that option. And I'm hoping, I know we're going to see that at various communities around the United States. And I hope it can kind of offset some of the mean spiritedness that is emerging out of the White House. Some of the negative comments that are said about all these different countries around the world. I'm hoping that everyday people in the United States will show that not everybody is thinking in that same direction.
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B
What is it that makes FIFA so resilient?
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A
I think it's the way they have set up their clientelistic patronage network where they basically pay off the members to stay on sides, to use a soccer metaphor, with whatever Gianni Infantino wants. They have no incentive to go against him because the money is flowing. They're living the good life they're getting. In the case of the FIFA Council I was mentioning before, they're getting paid really well. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's why the boat continues to float right along. There's fewer and fewer footholds inside of the organization to level dissent against President Infantino. And so it really behooves people outside of the organization. Journalists play a key role in this World cup in terms of thinking critically about this event. Activist groups that I know are revving up to get ready outside of stadiums and in communities that are affected by the World Cup. This is their chance to really get out there and make sure that there's the complex conversation around the World cup that the world really deserves to have.
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B
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who you mentioned earlier, said FIFA is a dictatorship. You were a professional soccer player, football player. For our English viewers, you love the game. Should FIFA be abolished?
- [28:53]
A
Well, first, thank you for mentioning that all the people that have been watching thinking, who is that crotchety guy? He must, like, hate sports.
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B
We'll say at the beginning.
- [29:01]
A
Okay, okay, good, good. Well, so, yes, I love sports and I have seen and experienced the power of sports. And I just believe deeply in my heart that it can actually bring people together. And I've seen it and experienced that. And it just isn't right to me. Doesn't sit right with me that FIFA is taking the people's game and it's really changing it into something else. It's distorting it more toward the Plutocrats game. You know, the Plutocrats can afford tickets to this World cup whereas everyday working people can't. So I still, even though it's gotten pretty intense, the corruption of the illegal and legal varieties these days, I think football is still worth fighting for. And that's what I'm going to do as we move into this World Cup.
- [29:49]
B
Jules, as ever, it's such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for illuminating the history of FIFA and also ending on that hopeful note because I think it is important to find ways to look for unity in the world today and stay optimistic and persistent.
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C
As you probably noticed, World cup fever is ravaging the entire uncensored universe. Bianca Noblo's dark history of FIFA has no doubt got you talking with the newly minted World Cup Uncensored. We're about to get the whole world talking. I've teamed up with Simon Jordan, one of the most opinionated broadcasters in sports media and the England legend John Terry to bring you World cup coverage with serious bite and humor, uncensored opinions, smart analysis, fearless debate and a few laughs. Make sure you follow World Cup Uncensored to get exclusive updates throughout the biggest competition on earth. Subscribing just takes a second and you'll be first in line to see the very big plans we have coming soon.
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A
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