FIFA, Like the White House, Will Fire You if You Get in the Way

While the United States government fired its chief criminal investigator yesterday, undermining the checks and balances creating the foundation of this democracy, FIFA also fired its chief investigators yesterday, undermining the checks and balances providing any semblance of oversight within the notoriously corrupt organization.

Although there are obvious differences between FBI Director James Comey's firing and FIFA's respective dismissals—Hans-Joachim Eckert and Cornel Borbely of FIFA's ethics committee, Miguel Maduro and the subsequent protest resignation by Joseph Weiler of FIFA's governance committee—there are some broad similarities worth elucidating.

Both Comey and the FIFA crew investigated the people who fired them and friends of the people who fired them. In Comey's case, he was leading the ongoing investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. For Eckert and Borbely, they have investigated current FIFA president Gianni Infantino, which resulted in no charges, but have banned former president Sepp Blatter, his second in command Jerome Valcke, as well as scores of other high-ranking officials caught up in the criminal investigation, including former UEFA president (and Infantino's longtime boss and friend) Michel Platini.

As for the FIFA governance committee guys, Maduro was the one who blocked Russian sportocrat Vitaly Mutko's re-election to the FIFA Council. In addition to his place on the FIFA Council, Mutko is the deputy prime minister of Russia and was the chairman of the (allegedly corrupt) 2018 Russia World Cup bid, president of the Russian soccer federation, and until 2016 was the Russian Minister of Sport, meaning his name is all over the McLaren Reports investigating widespread anti-doping violations and cover-ups in Russian sport.

The decisions were made unilaterally, undemocratically, under dubious circumstances, for mysterious reasons, and by tremendously compromised parties, to send the message that there is no such thing, in either administration, as independent oversight.

One could expect as much from a Trump administration, given the Commander-In-Chief is perhaps best known for saying "You're fired" in an exaggerated New York accent on television. But I, for one, had higher hopes for the FIFA boss. When Infantino ran for president last year, he was one of several to embrace a role of reform candidate. FIFA needed an awful lot of it, what with the criminal charges, police raids, and international investigations and all. He repeatedly pledged transparency and "house in order"-type cleanup efforts. I suppose he never specified what, exactly, he was going to clean up.

Infantino's first year in charge has provided precious little evidence he is truly committed to meaningful reforms. Insofar as Infantino has reformed anything, they're of the cosmetic type to attract sponsors, not re-imagining the fundamentals which got FIFA into this mess in the first place. Yesterday's firings send the same message in Zurich as they did in Washington: anyone can be replaced.