The Guardian has reported that:
UK offshore tax havens at heart of US investigation into World Cup corruption
British Virgin Islands, Caymans and Turks & Caicos feature heavily in justice department indictment of senior football officials
The usual culprits you might say, but hang on a minute: where are Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man?
Before they claim they've cleaned their act up remember the allegations are not of European fraud and, like it or not, secrecy jurisdiction usage is still quite geographically linked. I think they miss this one for that reason, in the main.
But the UK still has to hang its head in shame nonetheless: it's still facilitating corruption through its Overseas Territories and the sham that they are independent of us, when they are not for the purposes of foreign affairs, which are predominant on this issue.
And David Cameron is culpable for not requiring that these places have public registries of beneficial ownership of their companies on the way, even to the same abysmal standard that he is offering in this country.
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Listening to every man and their dog in the UK (including the Prime Minister, Prince William and the whole of Fleet Street) you would think that this is all about corrupt Blatter and FIFA being propped up by corrupt developing countries that apply different standards than us shining examples of probity and integrity. On the rare occasions the role of our banks is mentioned it is invariably in terms of whether “they were used” by the corrupt foreigners, despite the fact that three banks mentioned have paid huge fines for facilitating money laundering recently. The most appalling aspect of the hysterical coverage has been the failure to ask how we managed to spend £16 million in our bid for 2022! The expensive wrist watch we gave to Jack Warner and the donation we gave him for “football development” have not been mentioned. It’s instructive that while Greg Dyke (who was forced to return a watch he received from FIFA last summer when it became public in December) has been making a fool of himself the people involved in the 2022 bid have kept a very low profile. With the US driving the probe, it won’t be long before the full extent of the British connection comes to light and once again the rest of the world would rightly laugh at our sanctimony and hypocrisy.
Sorry, but this is another US coup in the making:
Part 1: Discredit the current incumbents of the country or organisation you want
to dispose of.
Part 2: Get some mates to help you out and support your claims (the coalition of
the willing).
Part 3: Find someone else in the country or organisation you are prepared to back
(the new guy).
Part4: Help the new guy to other-throw present incumbent but make sure all
efforts to help him/her (money or arms) are kept secret.
Part 5: Once present incumbent has been deposed, make sure that the new guy knows
who their ‘Daddy’ is right? Provide him/her with new disciples to follow
and pay them handsomely for their connivance.
Part 6: Now make a killing by being even more corrupt than the previous incumbent
but use status of ‘Beacon of the Free World’ to make everything look
legit and wholesome. And refuse to make your inner workings more
transparent citing that you are doing ‘God’s work’.
Part 7: Use new intellectual property laws to prove that the USA invented football
and then charge all countries fees for playing the game setting up a nice
little investment portfolio for Goldman Sachs investors & other financiers.