Rod Stewart Lashes Officials in Soccer Scandal
Rabid soccer fan Rod Stewart has weighed in on the international scandal rocking the sport’s governing body. He praised the arrest and indictment of 14 FIFA officials, who prosecutors claim received up to $150 million in bribes, saying their "reprehensible behavior is finally exposed."
In all, the U.S. Justice Department and prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York have compiled a federal indictment including 47 counts of bribery, fraud and money laundering, relating to rights to televise games, game locations – including the lucrative World Cup – and even who would hold leadership positions.
Stewart, posting to Twitter, says greed has sullied what should have been a simple mission for the Federation Internationale de Football Association. "Instead of football programs for underprivileged children," he said, "the Fat Cats got fatter."
Stewart was a captain on his school soccer team, playing center-half for Middlesex Schoolboys. By 1960, he was taking part in trials for the Brentford Football Club, though he eventually decided to become a rock star instead. "Well, a musician's life is a lot easier, and I can also get drunk and make music, and I can't do that and play football," Stewart joked in 2004's New Biography. "They're the only two things I can do, actually: play football and sing."
More recently, Stewart was part of a senior soccer league, based in Palos Verdes, Calif. He also famously constructed a full-size pitch on the grounds of his estate in Epping, England. His favorite team? Glasgow's Celtic club, for whom he once famously sang, "Baby, I've decided, you're the best team that I've ever seen," as part of his 1977 hit "You're in My Heart."
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