Fifa Uncovered shines a spotlight on soccer’s rot
An uncomfortable history lesson ahead of next week's World Cup
Kia ora and welcome back to Rec Room, The Spinoff’s pop culture and entertainment newsletter brought to you by Panasonic. This week I’ve marathoned both the new Phil Spector documentary on TVNZ+ and the fascinating Synanon podcast The Sunshine Place. Here’s what else I’ve been consuming over recent days, with an excellent guest rec from my colleague Chris Schulz.
- Catherine McGregor
Fifa Uncovered shines a spotlight on soccer’s rot
Fifa president Sepp Blatter is showered with cash by a protestor in 2015 (Photo: Getty Images)
The 2022 Fifa World Cup will surely go down in history as the most morally dubious sporting event since the end of apartheid. That the tournament doesn’t even come into focus until episode three of Fifa Uncovered is a mark of how deep and pervasive the rot at the heart of world soccer’s governing body really is.
The series is screening ahead of next weekend’s opening ceremony in Doha, and if you’re wondering why a World Cup is happening now rather than at the height of (northern hemisphere) summer when the tournament is usually held, well, good question. The answer lies at the end of a thread of corruption stretching back to 1974, when Brazilian João Havelange was elected Fifa president – with the help, Fifa Uncovered alleges, of numerous brown envelopes of cash delivered to voting nations. Havelange came into the role with big plans for a parochial organisation that at the time was still being run from a small upstairs office on a Zurich side street. Many of his ideas were positive: he created the women’s World Cup and multiple regional tournaments and programmes that embedded soccer in poor nations across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, helping transform the sport into the world’s game.
He also oversaw a tidal wave of corporate cash that began flowing into Fifa’s coffers, from the sale of TV rights – more shady arrangements, more kickbacks – and massive brand sponsorships. These deals were pioneered by Havelange’s right-hand man – and eventual successor – Sepp Blatter, a Swiss marketing man who almost single-handedly turned soccer into the most valuable sports product in global history.
Sepp Blatter announces Qatar as 2022 World Cup host, 2010 (Photo: Getty Images)
As Fifa president, Blatter presided over an orgy of corruption largely centering on Jack Warner, head of the confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean football. Along with his sidekick, the marvellously named US sports administrator Chuck Blazer, Warner embarked on a scarcely believable run of bribe-taking, including $10 million in exchange for his votes in support of South Africa’s World Cup bid. That money was ostensibly a donation to fund soccer initiatives for the Caribbean’s African diaspora, the descendants of slavery, but nothing ever came of it. The money went directly into Warner’s pocket.
And so it went on until 2010, when the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were decided. If Russia being awarded the 2018 tournament (over the UK, which almost everyone agreed had the best bid) was a shock, the 2022 winner was a complete bombshell. Fifa Uncovered tells how Qatar, a tiny gulf nation with a terrible national team, no football culture and not a single stadium of its own, used its eye-watering oil wealth to buy the votes of other countries. Defending Qatar in the documentary is Hassan al Thawadi, the head of the nation’s bid, who makes decent points about the value of bringing the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time and the racial undertones of some of the criticism – then goes and spoils it all by wiping away hilariously fake tears at the memory of the backlash. This is the chance for the interviewer to go for the jugular, yet when al Thawadi challenges him to name specific instances of corruption, he stumbles, allowing the Qatari to shrug off the allegations as coincidence and sour grapes.
It’s a frustrating moment, but elsewhere Fifa Uncovered does a great job of laying out the shameless venality and abuse underlying this month’s tournament. It’s important that everyone is aware of the human rights violations – against women, the LGBTQ community and, perhaps most horrifically, migrant workers – that remain facts of life in Qatar. Facts that Fifa members conveniently ignored in 2010, blinded by the dollar signs that are now an unavoidable part of the business of soccer.
Fifa Uncovered begins, and culminates, with the 2015 raid on Fifa’s Zurich HQ at the direction of the FBI in New York. All told, 41 people were arrested and 18 were charged, Jack Warner among them; he still lives a life of luxury in Trinidad & Tobago where he is fighting extradition to the US. For Fifa, the financial corruption may have been reined in but the willingness to turn a blind eye to dictatorships and human rights abuses remains. When the World Cup kicks off next week it’ll be up to the fans to remind Fifa what fairness in sports really means. (Netflix)
TV, movies and pop culture of all kinds have been at the heart of The Spinoff since day one, and I’m so happy to be helming our weekly newsletter about great things to watch and listen to. So far on the new Rec Room I’ve sung the praises of excellent German costume drama The Empress, delightful medieval romp Catherine Called Birdy and stellar (sorry) Star Wars show Andor, and shared heaps more recommendations from me and the rest of the Spinoff team. We love being able to celebrate smart, funny, thought-provoking television and podcasts with our readers, and it’s the support of our members that helps us do it. Tautoko mai, join up here.
Drama rec: The English
Emily Blunt in The English (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)
Following the wonderful The Honourable Woman, and the less-wonderful but still interesting Black Earth Rising, British writer/director Hugo Blick takes his biggest swing yet with this, a six-part revisionist western about two outsiders out for revenge in 1890s America. Emily Blunt plays aristocrat and bereaved mother Cornelia Locke; Chaske Spencer is Eli Whipp, a Pawnee ex-cavalry scout seeking the land that was promised to him by the army. It’s a bloody and beautiful tale, full of stunning wide-screen shots punctuated by brief moments of extreme violence. Blick is a fan of long silences and enigmatic dialogue – an acquired taste, to be sure. It’s worth sticking around though, if only for Blunt’s ability to puncture the atmosphere with a raised eyebrow or sardonic quip. (Amazon Prime Video)
Documentary rec: Mister Organ
David Farrier has spoken at length about how much he hated making his new movie, how much it messed him up, and how he’ll never do it again. “If I had my time again with this, I guarantee you I would not do it,” he told us about Mister Organ, his second feature-length documentary that is in cinemas now. For the better part of four years, Farrier tried to track the man behind the Bashford Antiques saga to discover what makes a man who charges $760 for a few minutes of parking tick. Instead, he finds himself sucked into a toxic relationship that he can’t escape from. He's not the only one and to say more would spoil the strangely compelling ride Farrier takes viewers on. But what makes Mister Organ even more extraordinary is that it isn’t yet over. Online battles are playing out, accusations are blazing and court cases are looming. This one could run for years. (In cinemas now)
- Chris Schulz
On The Spinoff now: Chris & Eli’s Porn Revolution
Comedians Chris Parker and Eli Matthewson are embarking on a mission to shed the stigma around porn. It’s the final episode, and after months of tough conversations and a lot of laughter, Chris and Eli are ready to launch their campaign. But first, they get some final wisdom from local porn legend Astrid Glitter. Contains sexual themes and partial nudity. Watch it here.
Comedy rec: This Country
A tip of the hat to whichever byzantine rights deal has brought a sudden bounty of great British comedy to TVNZ+. Along with The Mighty Boosh, Extras and Stath Lets Flats, which our own Chris Schulz declared the funniest show on television, comes This Country, a brilliantly observed mockumentary about two bored cousins in a sleepy Cotswolds village. Co-written and starring Daisy May and Charlie Cooper – who are, like the stars of Stath Lets Flats, real-life siblings – the show mines hilarity from tedium like nothing since the glory days of The Office UK. New Zealand is a latecomer to This Country – it finished its run in 2020 – but that means we have two delightful seasons waiting to be watched; here’s hoping season three lands on TVNZ+ before too long. (TVNZ+)
Random links
A question I ask every time I scroll past it on my Netflix carousel, finally answered: In a nutshell, what exactly is Manifest about? (Something really bananas, it turns out).
A mainstay of pop music for decades, the late-song key change is almost extinct. What happened?
So-so Netflix comedy Blockbuster tries to find humour in the final days of the massive US video rental chain. Jonny Potts argues that video stores deserve more respect.
How it feels when one of your songs gets co-opted by a politician you really hate.
New Zealand’s only gay pornographic feature film was made by a first-time woman director. Astrid Glitter tells the story behind John.
A weird weekend at OneTaste, the ‘orgasmic meditation’ organisation at the centre of the Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc.
This made me sad: My Dad Wrote a Porno, a podcast that has made me laugh more consistently than anything over the past seven years, is drawing to a close.
I haven’t caught up with the newest batch of The Crown episodes yet, but Sam Brooks has – and says this 90s-set season has lost a bit of the old sparkle.
A fascinating interview with Wakanda Forever star Tenoch Huerta about playing the first Indigenous, Latin American hero in the MCU.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.