FIFA juggles multiple scandals as Brazil heads into the World Cup

As soccer fans around the globe dust off their vuvuzelas in preparation for Thursday’s World Cup kickoff in Sao Paulo, Brazil, event sponsors are calling for the sport’s governing body to thoroughly investigate allegations of bribery in Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 tournament.

“The negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football [soccer] nor for FIFA and its partners,” Adidas, sportswear manufacturer and longest-standing partner of the tournament, said in a statement Sunday.

But this isn’t FIFA’s first international cap in corruption. Multiple members of FIFA’s top brass have been forced out, including the governing body’s former vice president, Jack Warner, who resigned in 2011 after he was accused of taking an estimated $500,000 in bribes from Australia to vote for its bid to host the tournament in 2022.

FIFA’s current president, Sepp Blatter, hasn’t had a clear breakaway either. His tenure has seen further allegations of bribery and fiscal mismanagement. He has also made salacious comments about homosexuality and asked women’s professional teams to wear scanty uniforms to increase ticket sales.

To discuss the mounting controversy of the World Cup, Al Jazeera America’s Thomas Drayton was joined in New York by Brett Forrest, a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine, and Al Jazeera correspondent Gabriel Elizondo in Sao Paulo for the channel’s regular Sunday evening look at “The Week Ahead.”

“Among international sports governing bodies, [FIFA] perhaps has the lowest reputation of all,” Forrest said. “It’s not overseen by any government body, it’s not beholden to any constituency and fans have no real say.” FIFA needs an overhaul in structure, culture and a change of leadership, said Forrest, who called Blatter the “Teflon Don of Soccer.”

An estimated 10,000 people marched in Sao Paulo on Wednesday to protest the amount of money — more than $14 billion — being spent by Brazil on the games, a number even iconic Brazilian soccer star Pele finds excessive.

 “Most Brazilians aren’t necessarily against the World Cup, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t against FIFA,” said Elizondo, who added that this sentiment may even reach Brazil’s seat of political power. Noting that he and a group of other foreign correspondents had dinner with Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, last week, Elizondo said the president quickly dodged his questions about the international governing body.

“Her response was ‘FIFA has given us a lot of advice here in Brazil, haven’t they?’ and she moved on to a different subject.”