Where this was said
The Zurich Dawn Raid and the 2015 Indictments
At 36:02 · chapter starts 33:40
The culmination of the DOJ investigation came on a May morning in 2015. Joshua Robinson was at the Baur au Lac — the five-star Zurich lakeside hotel that had long been FIFA's unofficial headquarters and where he had watched executives return from Bahnhofstrasse shopping sprees — when Swiss police, empowered by the FBI and DOJ, arrived to carry out arrests. As FIFA executives were walked out of the hotel, Loretta Lynch read out a 47-count indictment: racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies spanning two decades. Fourteen people were indicted that day. The RICO statute — originally designed for the Mafia — had been turned on global sport's governing body. For Jonathan Clegg, it was 'a decade of vindication delivered upon them.' The FIFA head of communications was so resigned to the inevitable that he was already cracking jokes: the president, the secretary general, and the head of comms are in a car — who's driving? The police.
Joshua Robinson was at the Zurich hotel with his $8 coffee when Swiss police — empowered by the FBI and DOJ — walked FIFA executives out in handcuffs. The 47-count RICO indictment against 14 officials was the law originally designed for the mob being turned on global soccer.
The DOJ's indictment against FIFA officials contained 47 counts covering racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies spanning approximately twenty years.
The DOJ's May 2015 dawn raid on a Zurich hotel resulted in 14 FIFA executives being indicted on charges including racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering spanning two decades.
Sepp Blatter was elected FIFA president five times before finally stepping down in the wake of the 2015 corruption scandal and indictments.
After stepping down, Sepp Blatter met Joshua Robinson for a two-hour French-language interview in a hotel above Zurich. He was unbelievably charming and not remotely contrite — insisting the DOJ investigation was a U.S. conspiracy over losing the World Cup hosting bid.
