US Initiates FIFA Case to Establish Control of Federation - Sports Lawyers

On Wednesday, the US unsealed an indictment charging nine FIFA officials with racketeering and money laundering conspiracies. Seven of the defendants were arrested in Zurich. Swiss authorities also launched a separate investigation into alleged misdemeanors in the allocation of the World Cup 2018 and 2022 tournaments in Russia and Qatar.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko – Bribery charges against FIFA officials are a political order from the United States aimed at establishing control of the federation and invalidate Russia's 2018 World Cup bid, a member of the Board of Directors of International Association of Sports Law, told Sputnik on Thursday.

"This is a political order from the United States. This is a desire to control the FIFA actions and maybe in this way influence the decision to hold the World Cup 2018 in Russia," Anatoly Peskov said.

According to Peskov, previous facts of corruption in FIFA were well known to sports experts.

Switzerland and the United States were very public with Wednesday’s investigation and arrests days before the FIFA presidential elections, as the football federation refused to bow down to the political pressure and relocate the 2018 championship in Russia, Peskov added.

FIFA elections are slated for Friday. Following the corruption scandal, many politicians and top football officials warned against reelecting four-time FIFA head Joseph Blatter, who received criticism for refusing to change the location of 2018 World Cup.

On April 20, Blatter told Russian President Vladimir Putin that politicians who are dissatisfied with Russia hosting the World Cup can stay home.

"The international law needs extra regulation of issues related to criminal immunity of large international sporting organizations," Peskov said.

The arrests of senior FIFA officials on US federal corruption charges were disrespectfully made without coordination with other countries, the member of the Board of Directors of International Association of Sports Law said.

"FIFA unites 209 football associations of different states… Therefore arresting chiefs of this massive international organization in relation to its international activity without coordinating it with other countries can be viewed as, at least, disrespect towards these countries," Anatoly Peskov said.

Peskov said he considered US decisions in the case "doubtful," as Washington decided to hold numerous nationals of foreign countries accountable without an agreement form FIFA or any other nations.

The FIFA corruption scandal is a result of insufficient sports regulations, as there is no entity to set the context of the federation’s regulations, Dimitrios Panagiotopoulos, President of International Association of Sports Law (IASL) told Sputnik Thursday.

"Sports federations, such as FIFA, have an 'autonomous function' which can't be defined in the framework of legal structure," Panagiotopoulos explained.

According to the IASL head, the football governing body is a private-law entity, which has a "safety net" under Swiss law "due to the lack of an international principal sports entity which might set the specific context of FIFA regulations."