It is mostly only real and supposed sports crooks who are the focus of journalistic attention, or those who – on a national level – waste taxpayers' money in an amateurish and uncontrolled manner. This series is finally about their helpers and lackays.
They deserve to be mentioned and are all too rarely mentioned: the minions in the PR industry, all the spin doctors, the highly paid liars and embellishers, among so-called academics, in the media, in politics, in NGOs, in the so-called good governance industry, in secret services, in the judiciary – and, of course, among the usual suspects, the accountants and auditors who certify outstanding business records and interplanetary business ethics to every mafia-like company in the sports business (such as FIFA).
Let's start in Switzerland, where large parts of the Olympic system are based and hosts of shyster lawyers, politicians, consultants, crisis managers and so-called auditors assist sports corporations.
That is their business. To a large extent, Switzerland is designed for these services; it is part of the DNA of certain circles there, often described in numerous corruption scandals and criminal sports systems of the past decades – not only at FIFA.
For example, Stefan Kühn, who made his big appearance at the virtual FIFA congress on Wednesday and did not seem at all relaxed in his video message. For example, BDO AG from Zurich.
BDO is an acronym for the three companies that came together in 1973 to form something bigger: Binder Hamlyn (UK), Dijker & Co (Netherlands) and Otte & Co (Germany). BDO has grown into a vast network of accounting, tax and business advisory firms – the fifth largest in the world, with a turnover (2023) of $14 billion. BDO operates in 166 countries and territories.
A Russian company called BDO was once involved in the heavily corrupt Russian bid for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, including as a sponsor. For example, it produced the audit report dated 21 January 2011, seven weeks after the scandalous awarding of the World Cup, and came to the obvious conclusion that everything had been carried out with complete transparency, integrity and correctness.
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