So this week we have big, big stories in the world all to do with corruption so let’s get onto it. This week, the whole saga that is Fifa crumbled in front of us with almost all the high ranking officials being arrested for bribery, racketeering and laundering money, similar to the raids on the mafia in the 90s. A quick summary for those who have missed it; FIFA, which is a charity, has been taking massive kickbacks from business cartels and so on in South America to fix matches in the South America league, so that is fairly bad but not a complete shock as  Fifa has been called out since the mid 1990s for corruption from people within the set up and from without. However, recently they have become over confident, bold, by giving the next two world cups to two countries that don’t deserve it and calls that Rio paid a truckload of money for it – all alluded to but now this has become a big deal as it looks like there is hard evidence. Russia and Qatar are trying to cover themselves as Europe, being the heartland of football, looks to boycott both world cups tournaments, taking with them the largest, richest sector for football and the reigning champs, making the ‘World’ cup a farce.

So why did they think they could get away with it? It is clear that FIFA believed themselves a hidden company with banks in Switzerland and, to be honest, we know that they were following the trend that seems to be rampant in big business of huge corruption that has only really in the last few years has finally been revealed, such as the Libor issue with bankers twisting the interbank loaning system for themselves, coupled with banks doing dodgy things for their CEO’s so no wonder really that Fifa were up to their fat, sweaty armpits in it. Sepp Blatter, as with Rebecca Brook, are the new species – overtly aware of what is going on – but brazen enough to tell us they don’t!    With the organisation taking up to around 100 million in bribes  – it is perfectly clear to all that Qatar and Russia had greased plenty of palms to get the World Cup and if Blatter didn’t then he is blind, mute and dumb – which he is not!  The whole of Fifa is such a good case to look at as an example of big business at this moment in time. We know bankers get paid a ton of money, we know nearly every celeb has, at some stage, dodged tax, we know now that people at the highest level are obscenely greedy, but is there anything we can do about it?    It’s a hard time with right wing parties ruling the most powerful countries on earth, freedoms are being eroded and twisted while the top echelon are getting richer and greedier. You have probably read that one of the Fifa executives had two 18 million pound apartments in New York, next to each other; one for him and one for his cats!!  That is obscene. We know they are all around us, screwing all of us, so why don’t we do anything? Simply because we have no power, normal people like me and most of you reading this are too busy working to really think about how to tackle the greedy around us, and if a few of us break into their ranks it takes a very special person to say no to their ways, to say no to a million from some Russian businessman or no to tickets to whatever we want, as soon as people start down that road there is no end to their greed. The only way we can combat this corruption is a popular uprising – which will never happen in most of the countries where you are reading this – it would take a moral, super rich, successful person to stand up for us all – someone to  get into their ranks and expose all of it and to show that the law can be for good!   But, depressingly, when they join the ranks they become like them – no one is willing to bring about change.

The other thing I want to mention quickly this week is the news that China is creating an artificial island to claim sovereignty over large tracks of the ocean – so to create a buffer to stop other countries warships getting to within 15 miles of China – why do they think anyone wants to??  That, my friends, is interesting, you should Google to see the pictures. Anyway that is it for this week, tell you what, if you know someone taking the mick in the work place and being a bit work-shy or dodgy, call them out – it’s got to start somewhere!! See you next week.