FIFA, Politics, Politics, Football and Football

The eighth Women’s World Cup starts today, a month-long event where the most ambivalent, soccer-hating country in the world, the United States, acts like the rest of the world when it rolls around.

Kind of like the Olympics, where people watch every four years, but not in-between, the World Cup is an event onto itself, promoted by self-serving and self-helping (as in any criminal organization, FIFA’s mantra is the same as the Mob’s — “Fuck you, pay me.”) people who take and demand outrageous accommodations (like a dedicated lane to avoid traffic, private dining facilities and, of course, money) for an event that countries pay millions of dollars for. FIFA, nothing. Just like the mob.

Even as the Women’s event gets underway, there are dark clouds on the horizon for FIFA. The next mundial is scheduled for 2022. In Qatar. A postage stamp-sized country carved out of Saudi Arabia. The bid was given to this nation in 2010, when oil was selling for close to $100 per barrel. It’s now half that.

In the nine years since awarding the 2018 and ’22 World Cup’s to Russia and Qatar, much has happened, but not much has changed. Well, a few things changed. Like the titular head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, stepping down in 2015 following the arrest and extradition of several soccer officials and FIFA big wigs. There have been rumors, amid reports from the BBC, ESPN and HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel of slave labor, kickbacks, and other improprieties, that there have been calls for the Cup to be…