What's Worse: FIFA Scandal or People Not Surprised Of The FIFA Scandal?

Regulations worldwide are increasing and it is no secret that other countries are beginning to take notice that corruption and bribery are seriously affecting their countries economic value. As corruption has the capabilities of infiltrating different countries, it also has the reach to go into any industry the global markets have to offer. We’ve seen corruption and bribery tap into industries such construction, finance, technology, and shipping, but just recently we have seen corruption and bribery peak its ugly head into one of the worlds largest sports organizations and industry, FIFA Soccer.

Interestingly, this has been an issue spanning many years but has never been talked about in larger circles. Being one of the biggest scandals, in scope of people affected and not by dollar amount, the bribery and corruption that tapped into this organization, touches all countries that participate in FIFA activities.

What is startling is to hear is the fact that people knew and understood what was happening, but yet said nothing. Was it systems that were not in place that caused the issue or lack of proper information sharing that allowed it develop into a grand issue? Only time will tell on why the issue raised was not addressed sooner.

Michael Scher of the FCPA Blog website, identifies the lack of compliance 2.0,as the reason stemming the issue for what has happened within the FIFA organization.

“But every organization needs checks and balances and that includes a Compliance 2.0 infrastructure where compliance officers have a voice in the big decisions. Our experience and common sense tells us that without Compliance 2.0 checks and balances and an independent chief compliance officer, scandals are going to happen”

Compliance 2.0 also brings in the idea of using software and data to track, monitor, and scale the risk you might potentially have within your organization. Having a method like this accompanied with the new views of how compliance should be run might have prevented a scandal of this magnitude.  Interestingly enough, with the FIFA World Cup just happening in Brazil, and other large corruption and bribery scandals within one of the largest economy’s in the world, Brazil is increasing its enforcement. Learn more about Brazil’s increasing enforcement shift and how compliance 2.0 can create more insight for your risk management systems approach. Click Here