Every four years, 32 of the top national football (soccer, to us Yankees) teams from around the globe enter a roughly month-long tournament known as the World Cup. Watched by nearly half of the Earth's population at some point — with more than one billion tuning in just for the final match in 2014 — the World Cup is among the most popular sporting events on the planet.
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| The truth about what happens behind the scenes at the World Cup |
Clearly, this tourney takes a staggering amount of preparation, much of which is not completed without controversy. From the scandal that rocked the tournament's governing body, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), to the billions spent and lives lost just to prepare host cities, the World Cup makes plenty of headlines before, during, and after the first kickoff.
Since the world obviously has no problem focusing on the actual gameplay, we figured we'd take a look at what goes down off the field. This is the truth about what happens behind the scenes at the World Cup.
Red flags for the FIFA brass
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On June 2, 2015, longtime FIFA President Sepp Blatter (above) announced his resignation from the post he held for 17 years. It was the culmination of years of investigation into fraud and bribery allegations by not only internal FIFA auditors, but also former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, as well as the IRS and the FBI.
According to The New York Times, Steele began looking into FIFA at the request of "wealthy individuals and corporations supporting England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup." The UK lost that bid in a debacle that included an embarrassing alleged bribery scandal that implicated Prince William and former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Steele concluded that Russia engaged in corruption of its own to win its 2018 bid to host, although this ultimately couldn't be proven, in large part, due to the alleged destruction of the bid team's computers. Steele passed his findings to the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Justice then took the ball and built a case that accused more than two dozen FIFA officials of varying degrees of "racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy," reported CNN.
Blatter was eventually slapped with a six-year ban from the sport over charges of making a "disloyal payment" to another former FIFA official. Having narrowly skirted corruption charges, Russia moved forward with its 2018 World Cup preparations, albeit under the heavy specter of foul play.
Missing the World Cup costs countries big time
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FIFA officials aren't the only ones to get red cards off the field. National teams have also been excluded due to shady sideline activities. Two teams in 2018 were eliminated from the tournament after being exposed in two very different scandals.
In March 2015, Zimbabwe was "expelled from the preliminary competition" after failing to pay former coach Jose Claudinei Georgini what was owed on his contract following his 2008 dismissal. According to Reuters, stiffing Georgini was just one example of the financial woes that plagued the Zimbabwe Football Association. In the past, the team has actually auctioned off everything from office equipment to artificial turf to pay down debt.
A month later, Indonesia was excluded from World Cup qualifiers and banned "from all international football" for "government meddling in the country's domestic league," according to Reuters. Officials from the Sports and Youth Ministry allegedly interfered with the league, which is a big no-no in the eyes of FIFA.
The dysfunction of both teams is remarkable considering the lofty rewards that come with participating in the World Cup — namely the $9.5 million teams get just for making the finals and the $38 million awarded to the champs. But hey, there's always 2022, right?
If you build it, they'll eventually park busses in it
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For host countries, the World Cup promises an unparalleled injection for the local economy. While it's undeniable that host countries' tourism industries enjoy a massive influx of international attendees during the tournament, the justification for spending billions of tax dollars on the event is typically couched in the hope of enjoying economic growth for years to come.
According to NBC News, 2002 hosts Japan and South Korea both reported a "boost" in their overall economies post-Cup. South Korea claimed an estimated "$4.1 billion in direct" and "15.1 billion in indirect economic benefits" as the net effect of its hosting stint, which seems like a valid justification for the hefty upfront price tag of $7 billion. However, according to economist Simon Bowmaker, who spoke to The Washington Post, the reality is that "most areas that host a major sporting event grow at a slower pace than normal after the event is over."
That hasn't stopped Russia from going even bigger. According to ESPN, the former Soviet Bloc nation is expecting a $31 billion return on its staggering $11 billion investment hosting the 2018 tournament. Again, that sounds like a worthy investment, but there are plenty of negative World Cup economic post mortem reports as well. Case in point: NPR reported that a $550 million stadium built by Brazil in 2014 is now "a parking lot for busses." Maybe they're really nice busses?
Dogs, drugs, and poor people need not apply
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Given the dubious nature of the rosy economic projections for hosting the World Cup, it should come as no surprise that the efforts and expenditure of host nations to stage such an event are always shrouded in controversy. The list of allegedly shady practices that have gone into World Cup preparation is long and grim, so we'll just study two recent examples.
Brazil went to dark and disturbing lengths to obfuscate the crime and poverty issues that plagued its tournament host cities in 2014. According to The Guardian, more than 100 innocent bystanders were killed by stray bullets during "heavy-powered gun battles" between a police and drug gangs in clean-up efforts ahead of the World Cup. Additionally, Al Jazeera reported that "250,000 people across Brazil" were allegedly "forcefully removed from their houses" or "threatened with eviction" to make way for stadium infrastructure projects.
Not to be outdone, Russia allegedly embarked on a campaign of stray dog genocide ahead of the 2018 World Cup. According to The Telegraph, Russian official Alexei Sorokin said, "There shouldn't be any stray animals, they should be destroyed, and that's it." The preferred method of destruction? Poison blow darts. According to The Sun, there are also unconfirmed reports of homeless people being rounded up and placed into "former army camps" away from tournament venues.
Terrible, right? Unfortunately, it gets even worse. Brace yourself, because this next bit could blow you right out of your sold out Nigeria kit.
Workers are literally dying to pull off Qatar 2022
There's a shady backstory to how 2022 host nation Qatar secured its winning bid for the World Cup, but let's focus instead on the human right atrocities allegedly being committed in preparation for the first tournament ever hosted in the Middle East.
According to a March 2015 report by the Independent, a force of approximately 1.5 million migrant laborers — some who were recruited under disingenuous circumstances — are living and working in terrible conditions to get the country's infrastructure overhauled in time. Long hours, dangerous work sites, and squalid living conditions are not even the worst aspects of the gig. By the way, Qatar's kafala system "prevents [migrant workers] from going home without their employer's permission," so they can't even quit.
As a result of this heinous labor arrangement, more than 1,000 workers have already died working on World Cup-related projects, reported the BBC. That number is expected to reach 4,000, according to an estimate by the International Trade Union Confederation. Cries of opposition have grown louder, with mainstream publications going so far as to print headlines like: "Qatar's workers are not workers, they are slaves, and they are building mausoleums, not stadiums."
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