1 Fifa corruption sparks sponsor concern (BBC) Key
sponsors of Fifa have expressed "serious concern" after the US
accused senior officials of football's governing body of racketeering, fraud
and money laundering. Coca-Cola said the World Cup had been
"tarnished" by "lengthy controversy".
Seven top officials
were arrested in Zurich on Wednesday, among a group of 14 people indicted.
Fifa has announced a provisional ban from football-related
activity on 11 of the people involved in the US prosecution. But it said
Friday's vote - in which Fifa president Sepp Blatter is seeking a fifth term -
would go ahead. Swiss prosecutors have also opened a separate investigation
into the bidding process for the World Cup tournaments in 2018 in Russia and
2022 in Qatar.
Fifa's key sponsors, including Adidas, Coca-Cola,
Visa, Sony, Gazprom and Hyundai/KIA have faced increasing calls to put pressure
on Fifa as corruption allegations have mounted. Cobus de Swardt, managing
director of campaigning group Transparency International, said: "If you
are putting many, many millions of euros into a business, then you definitely
have a right and responsibility to demand that you are not tainted."
Fifa's main sponsors are afforded exposure in
stadiums and have the right to use Fifa trademarks in advertising. Mr Blatter
also received a stinging rebuke from Uefa. The European football governing body
said the events were "a disaster for Fifa and tarnish the image of
football as a whole". It said corruption was deeply rooted in Fifa's
culture.
2 Greece is all but bankrupt (Landon Thomas Jr in
The New York Times) Two weeks ago, Greece nearly defaulted on a debt
payment of 750 million euros, or about $825 million, to the International
Monetary Fund. For the rest of this month, Greece should be able to cover daily
cash deficits of around 100 million euros. Starting June 5, however, these
shortfalls will rise sharply, to around 400 million euros as another IMF
obligation comes due. They will then double in size on June 8 and 9. “At that
point it is all over,” said a senior Greek finance official.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’challenge is to keep
the backing of a majority of Syriza’s party officials and legislators. A new
election would provide a way for Tsipras to kick out the hard-liners in his
party. Interior minister, Nikos Voutsis, said that there would not be enough
money to pay the IMF if there was no deal by June 5.
In a society that has lived off the generosity of
the government for decades, the cash crisis has already had a shattering
impact. Universities, hospitals and municipalities are struggling to provide
basic services, and the country’s underfunded security apparatus is losing its
battle against an influx of illegal immigrants. In effect, analysts say, Greece
is already operating as a bankrupt state.
The government’s call to conserve funds has been
far-reaching. All embassies and consulates — as well as municipalities
throughout the country — have been told to forward surplus funds to Athens. Hospitals
and schools face strict orders not to hire doctors and teachers. And national
security officials complain they are under intense pressure to keep air and sea
missions to a minimum, at a time when migrants from Africa and the Middle East
are rushing to Greece’s shores.
For a generation of Greek politicians who saw government
spending (and borrowing) as a national birth right, the idea of deploying only
the money at hand has been jarring. Security experts say that well-to-do
families in suburban pockets surrounding Athens are now supplying critical
funds to local police departments.
At the University of Athens, the country’s largest
educational institution and home to about 125,000 students, the annual
operating budget has fallen to €10 million from about €40 million before the
crisis. In the first four months of this year, health officials say that the
140 or so public hospitals in Greece received just €43 million from the state —
down from €650 million during the same period last year.
3 Facebook claims 40m small business pages (Benjamin
Synder in Fortune) Facebook has 40 million active small business pages, the
company has announced. Almost all of the 2 million who advertise on the
platform are small business owners, up from 1.5 million last year. Facebook
defines an active small business page as a profile that has posted information
in the last 28 days. Facebook said it had 30 million active small business
pages last June.
The social media company has been on a full-court
press to keep business owners happy. It’s set to unveil a chat function, for
instance, that offers “live one-on-one support, so businesses can ask questions
and get the answers they need, in real time,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
But Facebook’s recent efforts to court small
business owners come after the company made changes that left some of them
confused at best, and angry at worst. While many small business owners had come
to view their Facebook page as a source of free or nearly free advertising,
Facebook’s recent alterations made it harder for small businesses to get
ad-style content in users’ feeds without paying up.
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