A mount of rigging by FIFA and Televisa?

Today’s New York Times had a couple of interesting articles regarding our sport. First, they reported that a little known, three-person company named Mountrigi Management Group, based in Switzerland, the home of FIFA, had managed to land the broadcast rights to televise the next four World Cups in the part of the Americas that runs from Mexico to Argentina. That is, they obtained the rights to the 2018, 2022, 2026, and 2030 World Cups for just about all of Latin America.

We then find out that the three-person company paid $190 million for the first two cups, but figures for the payment already made for the latter two cups were not readily available as the current FIFA administration in Zurich declined to provide any details of the former FIFA administration’s dealings. The fact that the three-person company was able to buy the rights before FIFA decided to extend those latter two tournaments by 33%, adding 16 teams to the 32 already participating in 2018 and 2022, and raising the number to 48 nations, just adds that much more bang for their prescient bucks.

But the cherries on top of this mount of rigging are that the rights were obtained without a public bid process, that the vast majority of FIFA nations have never heard of Mountrigi let alone that they had the given media rights, and, oh yes, that the Swiss company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Televisa Media Group, the giant Mexican media company, also known as the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the world. The problem with the latter revelation is that Jerome Valke, the indicted ex-Secretary General of FIFA, is being investigated by Swiss authorities over what they believe was the taking of bribes from an unmentioned business man for “the award of media rights to certain countries for FIFA World Cups 2018-2030.”

The second article in today’s paper stated that Mr. Emilio Azcarranga Jean, the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and largest shareholder of Televisa has decided to step down from the first of his three roles in the company. Now, Mr. Azcarranga’s major contribution to his company, over the 20 years he has run it since his father died, has been to make subscription television (read cable) the major revenue source of his company’s income. So, why, pray tell, is he resigning as CEO? Wait for it…

Last week Univision, the Spanish language cable television station, who was to carry the Spanish language coverage of the 2018 World Cup, was dropped by my cable operator, Verizon FIOS. When I tuned to the channel it was simply running a bilingual ad which stated that Univision (part of the cable subscription package I pay for) was being dropped by Verizon because the Spanish language network wanted to renegotiate rights that would double what Verizon paid Univision for the feed. Of course, Verizon stated, it would mean FIOS would have to increase what it charged me. So, Verizon claimed it was dropping my chosen and paid-for service in its effort to champion my cause and save me money.

Now we will leave aside the fact that the ad did not mention how much my cable bill would be decreasing, given Verizon’s choice to subtract content from the package I chose and pay for, and how that jells with their avowed interest in saving me money. What is interesting is that Televisa—who has been steadily losing income as interest in its main global offering, its telenovelas (soap operas), declines—owns 10% of Univision, the largest Spanish language network in the USA.

Could it be that with the World Cup coming up in eight months negotiating higher rates for Spanish language coverage whose advertising numbers spike manifold during the months prior to the tourney, during the six weeks of it, and for at least the succeeding couple of months’ worth of reruns of the games, seemed to Univision the prescient thing to do? You know, given that (quack) Univision’s part-owner, Televisa, has the broadcast rights (quack) which its subsidiary, Mount-rigging Management Group (quack), obtained in what may have been a non-bid negotiation with Valke’s FIFA (quack), while Infantino’s FIFA declines to clarify what happened (quack), and Mr. Azcarranga flies the coup (quack-quack)?

Now, to my untrained eye, that circuitous route from Mountrigi to Zurich, and from there to Mexico City, and finally to my television in Alexandria, VA, is beginning to look like a straight line, from FIFA to Televisa (via FIOS) to my (our) pocket(s). All I see is a large mountain of rigged everything. What duck do you see?