Benny Avni

Benny Avni

Soccer

The Corruption Cup: Soccer’s off-field horrors

These next few weeks the World Cup will undoubtedly dazzle fans as always. Too bad everything around the tournament stinks.

The games open Thursday in Sao Paolo, as the home team meets Croatia. But questions abound about fan safety in the newly-built Sao Paolo stadium.

And outside, indeed across the country, street protesters threaten to disrupt the games.

Yes, Brazilians adore futebol. Soccer stars are local gods; the game is a national religion. So why would they pour into the streets to protest against hosting the world’s most-watched, most lucrative, most important championship series?

Because the economy is sinking under the leftist leadership of President Dilma Rousseff. Growth is low, inflation high. And Brazilians are angry that Rouseff cut education, health and public safety while spending $11 billion on building soccer venues.

And doing a shab­by job of it.

Only this week did Brazilian authorities finally certify that the stadiums in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and the other World Cup venues comply with safety regulations.

Local regulations, that is. Brits and other Europeans doubt the Sao Paolo stadium, for one, would get a clean bill of health under their laws.

Upset unionists and rowdy youths have been pouring into the streets for weeks, with cops (those not on strike) trying to keep the lid on. The mini-riots continue even as the games get under way.

Yet, as badly as Brazil mishandled its hosting duties, it isn’t even half as bad as FIFA, the “not-for-profit” body that runs the highly lucrative business of international soccer.

The global outfit has representatives from 209 member states (more than the UN’s 193), but since 1998 it’s been run by one man — Sepp Blatter, a 78-year-old whose sexist remarks make even Donald Sterling sound politically correct. And he seems a cinch to “win” a fresh four-year term as FIFA’s president next year.

And no matter that The Sunday Times of London recently documented secret payments from a Qatari billionaire, Mohamed bin Hammam, to FIFA officials to award the 2022 World Cup to his country.

(The deal also made Russia the host in 2018, though there’s no word yet on how much Moscow had to pay for that prize in the wake of its corrupt, bungled work on facilities for the Sochi Olympics.)

FIFA’s own internal “investigation” found no wrongdoing in its Qatar decision. But bribery is really the only explanation for so colossally dumb a choice.

Because — come on, Qatar?

The World Cup is a late spring event played in outdoor stadiums. June temperatures in Qatar typically climb up to 120 degrees — too hot for a stroll outside, let alone to play a game that involves constant running for 90 minutes. No one at FIFA noticed?

As a fix, some members propose moving the 2022 games to winter. Uh-uh: Winter is when pro stars play in the European leagues — for salaries reaching seven figures. Who’ll quit his paying team just to wear the homeland jersey in a badly-run world tournament? And if most superstars skip, the World Cup is a bust.

What a mess.

Which brings us back to Thursday’s opening: The host country is widely predicted to win the World Cup. If it doesn’t, the already-agitated Brazilian public is likely to grow even more restless, seriously threatening any hope of ending the tournament peacefully.

And Brazil could lose.

Many top analysts believe that Europe has leaped way ahead of the beautiful and speedy soccer style of South America. Why?

European coaches have recently adopted the deep numbers-crunching analysis that guides managers in American sports (notably baseball). So teams like Germany and Spain may have the real edge.

We can hope that international soccer can also learn from the Americans. Imagine if the body that governs “the beautiful game” actually learned how to organize sports events honestly.

Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL and NBA may not be perfect, but their failures aren’t even in the same league as Brazil’s incompetence and FIFA’s built-for-graft structure.

In other words, if the world wants peace, love and harmony-through-athletics to truly reign over future tournaments, the World Cup needs to take some tips from the United States.

Then we can look to reform the outfit that makes FIFA look clean — the International Olympic Committee.