The Fall of the House of Fifa: How the world of football became corrupt

Description

The definitive story of Fifa - from its humble beginnings as the amateur organiser of international football, to the behemoth mired in corruption, written by one of the greatest investigative writers in football. 'A superb go-to guide for anyone seeking context on why Qatar won the 2022 World Cup bid' Daily Express The Fall of the House of Fifa is the definitive story of Fifa's rise and the most spectacular fall sport has ever seen. For forty years Joao Havelange and then Sepp Blatter presided over a Fifa now plagued with scandal - dawn raids, FBI investigations, allegations of money laundering, industrial-scale bribery, racketeering, tax evasion, vote-buying and theft. Now David Conn, football's most respected investigative journalist, chronicles the extraordinary history and staggering scale of corruption. He paints revealing portraits of the men at the centre of Fifa - the power brokers, the indicted, the legends like Franz Beckenbauer and Michel Platini - and puts the allegations to Blatter himself in an extended interview.

David Conn is the author of The Beautiful Game? and multi-award-winning journalist for the Guardian. He has been awarded UK sports news reporter of the year three times, and sports journalist of the year in the British Journalism Awards. David has many years of unique experience carrying out original investigations into football and its modern relationship with money, and has been a key part of the Guardian's coverage of the Fifa crisis.

This book has a cumulative power, piling betrayal on betrayal, until they even include one of Conn's childhood idols from the 1974 World Cup, the German player Franz Beckenbauer * Guardian * We have known for so long that Fifa, world's football's governing body, is rank with institutionalised corruption... But then if we are to hand a rifle to anyone to shoot fish in a barrel, there could be no choice than David Conn, the dogged investigate reporter... The figures he uncovers in this book are breathtaking * Mail on Sunday * Even in age inured to corruption, the reign of Sepp Blatter over football's global ruling body, Fifa, was jaw-droppingly spectacular... How did he do it? David Conn's patient unravelling of Fifa's tangled web provides the answer, and it makes for ugly but revealing reading... Conn, a sport journalist on the Guardian, negotiates the murky world of big money with confidence and dogged calm in this tale of the beautiful game gone bad * Observer * Excellent * Sunday Times * A very fine piece of reportage, probing to the organisation's dark and festering heart while also taking care to accentuate the good FIFA has done in the world * BALLS.ie *