What the World Needs Now Are Better Bribes
Former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner speaks at a political rally in Marabella, Trinidad and Tobago, on June 3, 2015. Indicted by the U.S. on charges of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering, Warner is listed as one of Interpol’s most wanted persons.
Photographer: Anthony Harris/AP PhotoThe investigation of corruption in FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, has unearthed evidence of rampant vote-buying around the choice of host countries for the World Cup. Court documents suggest Jack Warner, former head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, took $10 million in bribe payments from South Africa to deliver votes for the country’s successful 2010 bid.
That’s a lot of money, certainly enough to support a comfortable lifestyle. Perhaps some of it helped Warner’s alleged co-conspirator Chuck Blazer pay for a $6,000-a-month apartment for his cats in New York’s Trump Tower. But relative to the billions of dollars spent on the World Cup itself, $10 million is a leftover cat treat. In that sense, the World Cup bribery scandal echoes what we know about government corruption in general: The size of the bribes is a small fraction of the value of related contracts and the potential economic impact of corrupted deals.