A dawn raid at the hotel where FIFA officials were staying in the lead-up to the election of the next FIFA President (or rather, the re-election of Sepp Blatter) has resulted in the arrest of six senior FIFA officials over allegations of corruption at the instigation of the US Department of Justice.
The arrested individuals include two FIFA vice-presidents, but not president Sepp Blatter:
Six Fifa officials including vice-president Jeffrey Webb arrested
Six Fifa officials, including vice-president Jeffrey Webb, have been arrested on suspicion of corruption in dawn raids at a Zurich hotel ahead of Friday's presidential election.
The members of the world governing body were held by Swiss police at the US Department of Justice's request.
They are suspected of having received bribes totalling millions of US dollars, the Swiss authorities said.
The FBI and US Department of Justice will hold a news conference later.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter, who is seeking a fifth term in charge of the organisation when he stands for re-election on Friday, is not one of those arrested.
But vice-president Webb, who is also head of the North America, Central America and Caribbean football federation, is among those held, according to BBC Radio 5 live's sports news correspondent Richard Conway, who is in Zurich.
Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay and the Brazilian deputy FA chief Jose Maria Marin were also taken away.
Members of Swiss law enforcement were still present in the hotel at 0800 BST but the main activity and arrests seemed to be over.
Li was due to join Fifa's executive committee on Friday, while Marin, who was led out of a side exit, is a member of Fifa's club committee. The officers were carrying his black suitcase and some of his possessions in plastic bags.
A high-level meeting of Fifa officials is now under way at their headquarters and a news conference is expected at 1000 BST.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32895057
A live feed of ongoing reports can be found here: http://www.theguardian.com/football/liv ... arges-live
I'm otherwise occupied today, so don't have time to write up a more detailed OP - and the news is still filtering in anyway - but what say you NSG? Is this finally going to be the catalyst for the root and branch reform FIFA so desperately needs, or is it going to be business as usual in Zurich?
Edit:
But that's not all - Swiss authourities have simultaneously made public their own investigation into the voting process to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar:
In a separate development, the Swiss attorney general also opened criminal proceedings over the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, seized documents and electronic data from Fifa’s headquarters and will question 10 current Fifa executive committee members who voted on that tournament.
The twin proceedings have cast Fifa into a state of crisis and Uefa wants Friday’s presidential election between incumbent Sepp Blatter and Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein of Jordan to be postponed.
Yes. it's been a very bad day for FIFA....
Edit 2:
Yes, John Oliver's 2014 criticism of FIFA is trenchant, funny, and relevant - but it's also been posted at least three times in the thread already.
