FIFA World Cup to declare its emergence

Posted by coininfifa on June 11th, 2014

FIFA 14 Coins PC dissension over whether to move closer to the European Union or effectively remain a Russian lapdog caused a sudden flurry of diplomatic grandstanding last week, and one very noticeable military incursion.

But lost in the warmongering waltz surrounding the former Soviet satellite is the role that the International Olympic Committee and the Federation of International Football Associations played in legitimizing modern Russia, and its brusque president Vladimir Putin.

FIFA and the IOC are apex non-governmental organizations, have shadowy finances, and are accountable to no one.

Still most nations shamelessly court them for their prestige, and because global sporting organizations can proclaim an emerging nation’s advancement like no other.

South Africa, for example, hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup to declare its emergence from a violent racial Apartheid past.

And despite the IOC’s standing position that there is no place for politics in the Olympics, global sporting bodies have a rich legacy of censoring nations acting outside the bounds of international standards.

Among the organizations that stood up to Apartheid decades before the United Nations were: the International Table Tennis Federation (1947), the Confederation of African football (1960), FIFA (1964), and the IOC (1970).

Those sporting boycotts – particularly the unofficial worldwide snub of South African rugby – were pivotal in popularizing the anti-Apartheid movement, as the UN didn’t sanction South Africa until 1986.

And contrary to its stated position, Olympic history is littered in politics.

Adolph Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Games to mask Nazi Germany’s military ambitions before plunging the world into its most deadly war.

The 1972 Munich Olympics, intended as the re-entrance of post-WWII Germany into the international community, was marred by the murder of 11 Israelis by Palestinian terrorists.

In Mexico City’s 1968 Games, two American athletes gave black power salutes on the medal platform to draw attention to U.S. civil rights abuses.

And in the twilight of the Cold War, the U.S. and USSR traded summer boycotts of the 1980 Moscow Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia struggled to find its feet.

That generation of turbulent domestic instability saw former Kremlin bosses procure previously state-run lucrative industries.

These so-called “oligarchs” emerged as the ruling class of the evolving European power, and Putin remains the most powerful among them.

In classic back-to-the-future fashion, Putin’s new Russia sought international affirmation from a familiar source – the international sporting community.

With oligarch financial commitments, and after months of Putin lobbying, the IOC chose Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in 2007. The selection placed the Games in Russia for the first time since 1980.

In the documentary film “The Philosophy of Soft Way,” Putin acknowledged “certain internal problems” to hosting the Games, but ridiculed critics of the Russian bid.

“In some countries, which are overfed with attention, we, unfortunately, do not see now such support for the Olympic movement,” he said.

Three years later, FIFA also chose Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.

After both selections, Russia’s anti-gay laws became a human rights rallying point. Its internal Chechnya revolt was also a sore point.

And disregarding international norms days after the Sochi closing ceremony, Putin sent troops to keep Ukraine under Russia’s thumb.

Incredibly IOC President Thomas Bach used the Sochi opening ceremony to chastise world leaders for using the Games as a political platform.

“Have the courage to address your disagreements in a peaceful direct political dialogue and not on the backs of the athletes,” Bach said in a veiled missive aimed at President Barack Obama, who placed gay athletes prominently in America’s Olympic delegation.

Best! Safe place to Buy FIFA 14 PC Coins | FIFA Ultimate Team Coins more likely, however, that IOC and FIFA executives are using athletes to facilitate a financial platform.

Russia ponied up billion for Sochi, including substantial oligarch investment. Additionally, its billion promise for the World Cup is now forecast to double.

On the same day FIFA chose Russia for the cup, soccer’s top governing body also selected the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar to host the 2022 competition.

FIFA executives accepted the nonsensical assertion that a country with the population of Houston could offset 122-degree seasonal high temperatures with 0 billion in aristocratic Arabian oil wealth and technology.

This is the same region where 26-year-old, Conshohocken, Pa. native Fran Crippen died in 2010 while swimming competitively in open water. Swimmers that summer day estimated the water temperature at 86 degrees.

After Qatar’s World Cup selection, FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke explained the bizarre choice by asserting the cup had been “bought.”

The widely circulated image of one FIFA executives’ alleged ,000 cash bribe buttressed Valcke’s claim.

An internal investigation could prompt a re-vote on where the 2022 tournament will be hosted. But most talk centers on shifting to a more temperate winter month.

Such convolution of traditional fair play sporting principles shows that FIFA and the IOC have veered markedly away from their previously courageous ideals.

It’s a shame the organizations have lost their way so horribly, but with corruption and cash dominating their group think, wealthy despots will host these once-proud and historic competitions for the foreseeable future.

FIFA 14 PC Coins is the political writer for The Patriot-News, and studied international relations at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.