EUROPE

Russia Says FIFA Corruption Investigation Is No Threat to 2018 World Cup

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Construction continued Wednesday on a soccer stadium in St. Petersburg, Russia, that is scheduled to host some of the 2018 World Cup matches. Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press 
MOSCOW — Russian officials said Wednesday that the arrests of top FIFA officials in Zurichand the promise of new investigations into corrupt practices at soccer’s international governing body would not derail Russia from hosting the World Cup in 2018.
“I see no threat to Russia or any problems,” Vitaly L. Mutko, the Russian sports minister, said in a telephone interview from Zurich, where officials from FIFA gathered for their annual meeting.
“There have already been many investigations” into alleged corruption in the awarding of the World Cup, Mutko said, adding that Russia would comply with Swiss law in a new investigation into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups announced by Swiss prosecutors on Wednesday.
Mutko led a charm offensive in 2010 to secure the right to host the quadrennial tournament in 2018. Since then, there have been questions about the propriety of Russia’s bid for the tournament, and the awarding of the 2022 tournament to Qatar.
Also, the United States and its European allies have sought to isolate Russia with sanctions after its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in southeast Ukraine. The World Cup has taken on added significance for Russians intent on projecting their international standing.
 
NEWS CLIPS By Reuters 1:30
Officials React to FIFA Arrests

Officials React to FIFA Arrests

The manager of the British soccer club Arsenal and other officials discussed the arrest of several high-ranking FIFA officials and what it means for Russia’s and Qatar’s World Cup bids.
 By Reuters on  May 27, 2015. Photo by Ruben Sprich/Reuters.
“If I thought about them canceling the World Cup, then I was a little bit worried about the political sanctions, that somehow they would interfere,” said Viktor Gusev, one of the country’s most famous soccer commentators. “But because of a corruption scandal in FIFA? I did not imagine it.”
It seemed that Russia was in the clear last November, when a FIFA investigation reaffirmed the country’s right to host the World Cup after an investigation into allegations of corruption in the bid process. (An investigator called its delegation “highly uncooperative” but Russia did not lose the right to host.)
Russian state television, which consistently promotes hawkish political commentary, said on Wednesday that the indictment may be a United States plot to destroy Russia’s World Cup dream.
“FIFA held an internal investigation into the vote over the hosting of the 2018 World Cup and did not find violations,” a reporter said Wednesday on the Rossiya-24 channel. “So American authorities decided to act using intimidation and blackmail.”
The Rossiya-24 report also said the arrests in Zurich on an indictment in an American court were tied to demands by two United States senators, including John McCain, the Republican known in Russia for his animosity toward President Vladimir V. Putin, that Sepp Blatter be deposed as FIFA president because he awarded Russia the World Cup.
Mutko declined to assign a political motive to the United States investigation, calling it “conjecture,” but many other politicians took to the national airwaves to denounce Wednesday’s arrests.
“The goal is much broader than just to take away the World Cup hosting from us,” said Nikolai Levichev, a Russian lawmaker, on the channel NTV. “They will try to smear and discredit Russia in the eyes of the world community.”
As to Blatter, the embattled FIFA president, it turned out he also had friends in the Russian Parliament.
“It’s probably not an accident that these arrests took place two days before the election of the FIFA president but I do not think they will affect the outcome,” meaning a win for Blatter, said Igor Ananskikh, the head of the parliamentary committee on sport and physical education, according to the Interfax news agency. “Under Blatter the federation has become stronger, many new members have joined, and profits have grown.”
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday protested United States law enforcement’s actions in Switzerland. “Without going into details about the accusations, we bring attention to this latest incident of the illegal, extraterritorial application of United States law,” he said.