FIFA leadership with corruption, bribery, and vote-rigging related to the election of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and the organization's decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively. These allegations led to the indictments of nine high-ranking FIFA officials and five corporate executives by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges including racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. On 27 May 2015, several of these officials were arrested by Swiss authorities, who were launching a simultaneous but separate criminal investigation into how the organization awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Those among these officials who
2015 FIFA corruption case certain transactions at FIFA including, but not limited to its president Sepp Blatter". Claiming further that he feared for his life, he declared, "(N)ot even death will stop the avalanche that is coming. The die is cast. There can be no turning back. Let the chips fall where they fall." l The existence of a U.S. federal investigation and grand jury based in Brooklyn was first made public in November 2014 by The New York Daily News. On 27 May 2015, during the FIFA annual meeting at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, authorities charged 14 officials, including nine