Podcast: The World Cup's Mysterious Path To Russia

Russia had no chance of hosting the 2018 World Cup when it presented its bid in 2010. FIFA thought it had the worst infrastructure, poor soccer, and the Russian government was barely making deadlines when filing the paperwork. Everyone thought England would be the natural winner and get the most votes during the final session, held in the FIFA underground bunker in Zurich. But when the day came, it only got two, actually.

Christopher Steele, the former British spy turned private investigator — yes this is the same man behind the Trump Dossier — was not surprised. The English government had hired him to find out what was going on behind closed doors with the Russian bid: alleged bribes to FIFA voters involved paintings — possibly a Picasso — and a swapping deal with Qatar that involved a new gas contract, among others. Putin was determined to host the event that would get his country the attention he wanted.

The UK government decided not to do anything against Russia or FIFA, so Steele called a friend, a specialist in organized crime who works as an FBI agent in the United States. The agent decided to go through with the investigation and ended up discovering what then turned out to be a massive scandal of worldwide fraud, money laundering and racketeering. In other words, FIFA worked just like the mafia.

Although many FIFA officials in different countries have been indicted, the Russians not only got away with hosting the World Cup, but the full story of how it got the bid is still a mystery and will probably remain unknown. The computers and records of the Russian government's deals with FIFA were destroyed.