About this episode
This week on Factual America, Matthew Sherwood is joined by Miles Coleman, writer and co-producer of Netflix docu-series, FIFA Uncovered. When the Fédération Internationale de Football Association – more popularly known as FIFA – was founded in 1904, its remit was simple: to oversee a competition between various footballing nations. Today, however, it is a multi-billion dollar organisation that operates almost as a nation state. FIFA Uncovered explores the governing body’s rise and the fall of FIFA executives following allegations of corruption in 2015. How did it happen? As Miles tells Matthew, money is at the heart of the matter. It began over fifty years ago when sportswear firm Adidas wined and dined FIFA executives in order to become a major partner. Over the years, people and interests who wanted to win at all costs passed money to executives to make sure the ‘right’ decisions were reached. For example, and allegedly, the grant of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. Miles discusses the challenges of making a documentary about a subject people either know everything or nothing about, of interviewing people in the age of Covid, and his determination to let the FIFA executives interviewed in the docu-series tell their own story. He looks at the hot topic of sports washing, how FIFA preferred dealing with repressive regimes to democracies, and what benefit a country like Qatar gets from holding the World Cup: it begins with good PR but goes far beyond it. Is FIFA Uncovered a docu-series simply for football fans? No. It begins with football, but ultimately becomes ‘a story about human nature’ as well as the success and humbling of an empire. Join Matthew and Miles as they explore a topic both epic and personal. Watch the episode at https://factualamerica.com “ ... this is a story about human nature. And it's a story about politics. It's about what happens when you let an organization with immense money in the bank, and immense power, and very greedy individuals running it. What happens when you let that organization run amok. ” – Miles Coleman