The second time FIFA executives were arrested on corruption charges in Zurich, we laughed at them because they used the same hotel as the first time. If you're wanted for racketeering and corruption and the like, we reasoned, you shouldn't stay in the same hotel you were at when Interpol arrested all your buddies for the same thing.
Fortunately, FIFA have come to their senses, not by becoming an upstanding, ethical organization, but by switching hotels. FIFA will move their Zurich accomodations from the Baur au Lac, where people keep getting arrested, to the neaby Park Hyatt, where, to our knowledge, no FIFA executives have been arrested.
We'll miss the Baur au Lac, though, because it was the location of one of our favorite scenes in soccer history, the first time Interpol arrested FIFA executives.
From The Guardian:
And it was where, in May 2015, Fifa executives were led from their beds and bundled into unmarked cars shielded by hotel linen in a dawn raid prompted by a US investigation that uncovered a “World Cup of fraud”.
Pour out some very expensive champagne (given to you as a gift by a foreign dignitary hoping to land a major international tournament) for the Baur au Lac.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
