Uefa pursuing criminal legal action against Infantino | Hacker News Reader

Uefa pursuing criminal legal action against Infantino

bbc.com

64 pointsbrudgers38 comments

At what point would it be worth it for clubs to just decouple from FIFA and start a new international federation without all the bullshit? I know as long as there's massive amounts of money involved corruption is bound to seep in, but the optimist in me wants to believe a new federation could be structured to be slightly more resistant to it.

That's the problem. You can create a new thing with the initial leadership that is well intended, but say 250 years later some one less well intended gets voted in charge. So something smaller like FIFA and IOC would be much more susceptible as the voting base is much smaller and easier to corrupt.

A lot of people would be behind this, but it would likely just cause a massive schism. The question to be answered is if the world is large enough for multiple global football organizations, because it's likely many of the regional ones will stay with FIFA for the near to medium-term.

What would be better is if they can work together to root out the corruption, but as long as profitability is worshiped as openly as it is, it will tough to fight since money is so concentrated and it's now a kind of self-sustaining entity.

You only need UEFA and CONMEBOL (South America) to agree with each other. Those two confederations include every FIFA World Cup winner so far. If they make their own organization and their own world cup, that's it for FIFA

Other confederations are important for FIFA-internal politics (especially the African votes, Infantino's biggest group of supporters), but for fans and players the quality of the clubs matters far more. And that is geographically clustered

South America’s federation has been supporting Infantno and supported the plan.

But not the nations. At least the Brazilian association is against the plan and arguably the most important.

On the internet, everything is arguable.

On the field, Brazil doesn’t appear to be most important these days.

It's because you probably don't know much about football (soccer?). The Brazilian football clubs dominate South America.

Brazil has 9 Copa America titles.

Fewer than Argentina.

Fewer than Uruguay.

And yes, I acknowledge your cherry-picking was Libradores.

Brazil has the richest league in South America and thus like England its teams can buy better players.

I see what you did there with the 250 years. I just assume you were not talking about football anymore.

> thing with the initial leadership that is well intended, but say 250 years later some one less well intended gets voted in charge

The fundamental problem with FIFA is the revenue body is also the sport’s standards and adjudication body. Split those functions, with one selling tickets and divvying up spoils, while a separate committee polices the sport, and you put aside a lot of the corruption issues unique to FIFA.

UEFA is an international federation.

UEFA is upset about FIFA’s finances because it cuts into UEFA’s finances.

I mean UEFA hasn’t put forward ethically superior plans to finance Futbol development in the poorest parts of Africa, remote Oceania, or tiny Caribean islands.

Indeed, in recent years UEFA has expanded UEFA competitive fixtures to increase revenues via 1. The Nations League, 2. The UEFA Conference League, and 3. The League Phase format of the Champions League and UEFA League.

Each of these is at the expense of countries outside of Europe via reduced opportunities for international friendlies witheuropean clubs, increased club calendars and associated injuries (player injuries have a disproportionate effect on countries with shallower talent pools).

All the UEFA complaints about the expanded world cup (and club world cup) were regarding actions UEFA has pursued in recent years…including the money grab.

If you have to bet, bet its the money not the principle of it.

Corruption has been part of the game since forever. One of the most infamous world cups was in Argentina during a brutal dictatorship. The one who threw people out of airplanes and took babies from pregnant women.

Argentina had its own version of Pinochet?

National clubs? They can and UEFA considered it but the problem is always buy-in.

FIFA has a billions in revenue and reserves. Many of the supranational areas are developing and need that income support, at least it looks like outreach, even if it's bribery-shaped. Even in developed nations the people who make the decisions have long tenures and like paid lunches and free tickets. Tough one to crack.

I am not a lawyer, but I do live in Zurich.

AFAIK, you can’t actually bring criminal charges as a civilian. You make a complaint to the public prosecutor and they choose to press criminal charges. Some crimes are only prosecuted if somebody complains. And obviously public prosecutors have far more legal power than civilians.

I wonder how sure UEFA is that the prosecutors will prosecute.

You mean this complaint explicitly mentioned in the article?

> proceeding is within reasonable contemplation for purposes of Swiss law and that Uefa has standing, as a complainant, to file a criminal complaint

Unless you know what that very specific word means, it’s not obvious to everyone because it’s not the same in all legal systems.

It was worth mentioning.

It also matters because that means UEFA can only really ask nicely, and hope they get those documents. A public prosecutor could ask both nicely and with force.

But since you didn't explain the meaning of the word, the person who didn't know would remain deprived of that knowledge

> it’s not the same in all legal systems.

In which popular legal systems can you bring a charge directly without some state intermediary involved?

> It also matters because ... A public prosecutor could ask both nicely and with force. So it doesn't matter since Swiss prosecutor can't use "force" towards a business in New York

That is quite interesting. Until now, I thought that private prosecutions are a feature in most jurisdictions (even if their scope / applicability is restricted). I'd value the right to present a case to a judge, even if the police or prosecution decline to prosecute.

>I'd value the right to present a case to a judge

Is the case presented directly to the judge/judge's office? Interesting indeed.

No. Although I believe some crimes are not optional and must be prosecuted.

Somewhat interesting, even if you as a victim don’t want it, some crimes are simply mandated to be prosecuted.

Private prosecution does exist, but only for some crimes. IIRC if the public prosecutor refuses to prosecute libel, I think that is one of the rare few crimes you can prosecute civil-ly.

That's what they said. They might raise a criminal complaint.

UEFA is making the allegations in Florida.

It’s a MAGA state.

And MAGA’s business deal, isn’t going to go through.

UEFA has powerful allies in Florida.

>UEFA has powerful allies in Florida.

ok who?

No, UEFA is performing discovery in Florida on FIFA's US affiliates to gather evidence of Infantino's corruption. The suit against Infantino will still be filed in Switzerland since that's where FIFA is headquartered (in Zürich).

That makes more sense since in the US, corporations (and actual persons) cannot file criminal actions.

Only governments (state, local, federal) can bring about criminal proceedings.

For the HN curious: What was wrong with the plan to further commercialize football via creating an SPV for the World Cup?

I detest Infantino and the grotesque corruption in FIFA, like in IOC and a certain administration. But UEFA Champions League and Nations League are the model Infantino proposed?

Another note is that I see a match of my favorite club every fortnight and have gotten used to the economics of being the 1500th club financially worldwide. (You get either youths or scratched players, and any outstanding player you bring up or find, you will lose for pennies.) Money changed football, but that change was 60 years ago. No manna from heaven is going to change that. So I’ll be gentle: without graft and corruption, and with adequate distribution, more money /could/ even mean better conditions for youth worldwide (/naive dreams).

At least you signed off your comment declaring your naïveté.

This money will only go into Infantino and friends’ pockets. Not an ounce of it would ever touch youth programs.

Because there is zero reason to sell off parts of FIFA to external investors. FIFA is rich and profitable and can fund everything themselves with cash or loans.

How this is HN related?

Good question given that a Hacker News probably couldn’t run 3 meters on the pitch without needing a water break.

Guidelines explicitly mention this type of submissions:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

You think it is an interesting submission, but it isn't even a particularly relevant step in the ongoing soccer drama.

Sure. Feel free to repost this comment on 90% of HN submissions

For front-page submissions it is rare to fall this directly into the off-topic submissions listed in the Guidelines.

I'd rather not read all the non-front page submissions [https://news.ycombinator.com/newest] and paste this under them.

You can ask this about 50% of the front page posts.

Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1107/

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