FIFA Soccer Scandal: John Oliver Was Right All Along

Ken Tucker
·Critic-at-Large, Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

The news is big: FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has been overwhelmed by scandal, with indictments handed down to 14 soccer officials and marketing executives for corruption of the sport — lots of shady deals and more than $150 million in bribes, it’s been alleged — over the past 24 years. Wednesday night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart noted that the illicit behavior has been going on for so long, “this FIFA scheme started Jennifer Lawrence-ago.” (Lawrence is indeed 24.) 

But the guy who was really on top of this story nearly a full year ago was Stewart alum John Oliver. On a widely hailed segment on HBO’s Last Week Tonight that aired in June 2014 and has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube, Oliver was all over the sins of FIFA:

As is frequently noted about Oliver’s show, one reason his skewering of subjects is so effective is because he spends a good amount of time — in this case, 13 minutes — laying out the facts and applying hilarious blame. (He refers to FIFA here as a “comically grotesque organization.”) Any non-soccer fan looking to get a fix on what happened this week to FIFA could not do better than watch Oliver’s segment again. And I’ll bet he’ll have an update on this story Sunday night.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO.