Getting their Kicks: Oligarchical Interests in Soccer

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts unveil the second installment of our season-long concentration on sportswashing with an examination of global soccer’s role. Two organizations drive the conversation, the Premier League of England and the sport’s global governing body FIFA, or the International Federation of Association Football. Considered by European audiences as a domestic league at the competitive and interest-level of what the NBA and NFL are in the States, the Premier League is among the very hottest of sport-related brands, globally. And the level of exposure and legitimacy created by fiduciary counts of one of the league’s top clubs has in turn brought about investment from some of the world’s most unsavory entities. Join us as we break down the long-held controlling interest in arguably the world’s premier club Manchester City F.C. by United Arab Emirate-based oil tycoons and the recent purchase of Newcastle United F.C. by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. The conversation transitions to FIFA, and while an examination of that group’s corruption could span a season-long’s worth of recordings, we focus on the how, what and why of Qatar’s successful bid to host the upcoming men’s World Cup. Quite literally being built on the back of slave labor, how is it did an Arab middle-power the geographic size of Connecticut acquire the right to host the globe’s largest sporting event?