FIFA Uncovered

Factual America

22 Dec

Written By

This week on Factual America, Matthew Sherwood is joined by Miles Coleman, writer and co-producer of the Netflix documentary 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 officials 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.

“... 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

Time Stamps

00:00 – Matthew Sherwood introduces Miles Coleman, writer and director of FIFA Uncovered
02:29 – Miles Coleman introduces FIFA Uncovered
05:19 – How the World Cup came to be held in Qatar
08:45 – How Adidas became a partner of FIFA
12:14 – The unknown nature of FIFA’s story
16:13 – Explaining ‘sports washing’
22:36 – Discussing whether FIFA is a fundamentally corrupt organisation
25:33 – How Miles persuaded his interviewees to appear in the docu-series
28:29 – Sepp Blatter’s belief in his innocence
30:33 – The importance of the top people at FIFA united
32:18 – FIFA Uncovered as a political documentary
33:56 – How the FIFA Uncovered project came about
35:18 – Book recommendations and FIFA Uncovered as a ‘primer’ on the scandal
37:39 – The philosophy of FIFA Uncovered
39:45 – Miles’ respect for those who tell their stories in the docu-series
41:03 – Miles on what makes a good documentary
42:27 – How documentaries get made
45:02 – Who could play Chuck Blazer in a film
45:32 – Miles on his (lack of a) Wikipedia profile
45:57 – What Miles is up to now
46:57 – Miles and Matthew’s predictions for the 2022 World Cup winner
48:48 – Miles on Lionel Messi
50:19 – Matthew Sherwood closes the episode

Resources:

FIFA Uncovered
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Transcript for Factual America Episode 117: FIFA Uncovered

Matthew Sherwood 00:00
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary, and then talk with the filmmakers, and their subjects. By the time this podcast airs, either Argentina, France or Morocco will be crowned the kings of football. But not all is right with the beautiful game, as we find out in talking with Miles Coleman, writer and producer of FIFA Uncovered. Join us as we discuss soccer, and how the World Cup ended up being hosted in a small desert country in the Middle East. Stay tuned. Miles Coleman, welcome to Factual America; how are things with you?

Miles Coleman 00:35
Things are good. Things are doing good. Yeah, our show has been out for about a month. So, you know, it's in the world; it's great.

Matthew Sherwood 00:44
Yeah, well, to remind our listeners, and viewers, we're talking about FIFA Uncovered, the docu-series currently streaming on Netflix. So, welcome again, and congratulations. I know it's been - it's always at the top - towards the top of the list of things to watch on Netflix. And I imagine you've had a busy last few weeks.

Miles Coleman 01:04
Yeah, it's been busy. You know, when we started work on this, which was about three and a half years ago, we always knew it would kind of crescendo around now. There's this little thing called the World Cup, and that was always - it was always part of the plan to kind of ride the very natural wave of, you know, people getting excited about the sport. What I think we never really anticipated, or at least not to this level, is just how much of the discussion and chat and news coverage has been about the off-pitch stuff. And our documentary, I think, is partly capitalizing on that and partly fueling that as well. And yeah; so, it's been fantastic to see how the documentary has been received, and has reached people, and is prompting conversations, including in people who wouldn't ordinarily talk about the governance of football, and by that I mean both hardcore football fans and also people, you know, my family in America, for example, are very interested in this now, and that's, you know, that's very gratifying to hear and to see.

Matthew Sherwood 02:03
Well, that's interesting. I mean, the way we usually roll here is we start off by asking a filmmaker what is their film all about? Now FIFA Uncovered, it seems to pretty much say it all, like Netflix titles tend to do, these days, but why don't you - for those who have either been under a rock or maybe just haven't had a chance to view this, what is FIFA Uncovered all about?

Miles Coleman 02:29
Yeah, I mean, the title FIFA Uncovered when, you know, it could imply that it's just a good old look around the building. It's much more about the history of FIFA. And if you tell the history of FIFA, it's a history of organized soccer over the last 100 odd years. FIFA was the organization that was set up to sort of govern and administer soccer on a global level in the early 1900s, but sort of grew and perhaps even metastasized into a multi-billion dollar organization with serious political clout, and our series, which is over four parts, kind of looks at a 'how did we get here' question, and that's kind of got two forks. The first 'how did we get here' is how did we get to a point where in 2015 FIFA executives were arrested in a luxury hotel in Switzerland just days before they were due to elect the FIFA president. And the second 'how did we get here' is how did we get here to have a World Cup in Qatar, a country that on the face of it, on paper, and indeed in FIFA's own technical report is largely unsuited to hosting a sporting event of this nature. And our kind of feeling was if we answered those two 'how did we get heres', we'd be telling a story about a global sport, about global soccer, about, you know, the organization itself, and not necessarily just focusing only on the negatives but sort of talking about some of the positives as well: how did it come to be this sport, which is very cheap and accessible to play, kind of conquered the world, and I realized that this is a podcast with a focus on America. So, when I say conquered the world, it's conquered the world minus the US, although even that's changing now.

Matthew Sherwood 04:13
Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, I was born and raised in the US, and I was one of the few - I've only been an early adopter for one thing, and that's probably been soccer. So, I was a bit older than you, but I was - you know, I was getting World Soccer magazine...

Miles Coleman 04:31
You don't know that. I could have had a particularly good skincare routine! [Laughter]

Matthew Sherwood 04:37
Well, and I had the opposite. But the - you know, 4 4 2 and all those, and I remember all this stuff about FIFA things, and FIFA just loomed large for as long as I've been following the sport. But, I mean back to those two questions. So, that first - the second one I think it was, that you posed, how did the small country in the desert land the World Cup. I mean, I think that's what all football fans have been wondering since the day it was announced, and even to this day, hence why we're sitting here, some of us shivering, watching, talking about a World Cup, which should be held in the summer. So, how did this happen?

Miles Coleman 05:17
Well, first of all, I mean...

Matthew Sherwood 05:18
And how much time do we have to talk about it?

Miles Coleman 05:19
Yeah, exactly. Block out the next two hours. I'm going to take your cue, and I'm going to stick with football. My wife's American, so I'm very used to saying soccer, but I'll stick with football for the time being. And yes, at the risk of spoilers, and at the risk of taking up the next three hours talking about it, because it is such a complex question, and really, our documentary kind of, you know, we get into some details, but there's so much more out. Really, if you want it down to a word, the word is money. Money is what brings the World Cup to Qatar. Qatar leads the world in one particular measurement, which is very relevant, which it's the richest [country] per capita on the planet. And money kind of influenced the way the World Cup was sent to Qatar in various ways. On one hand, it's very understandable, as our documentary goes into; money was relevant because certain executive committee members, these are the men who vote for where the World Cup is held. At that point in time, they were all men doing voting. The allegations that certain executive committee members were induced with financial payments, that were sort of disguised, thinly veiled as development funds. But really, we have no reason to believe that they were spent - that this money was spent on development of football. And the promises were made, money was put on tables, and votes were cast. And all of these allegations are strongly denied by those involved, both in terms of paying and receiving that money. And that's kind of the FIFA corruption that I think a lot of people expected. A lot of people, before they watch the documentary, just assume that's kind of the bulk of it. It's basically, it's dirty money, brown envelopes. What we discovered, and what I think audiences discover on watching the show, is that actually, lots of the money that was involved in this World Cup vote happened at a far higher level. We're talking intra-governmental deals, we're talking about a gas deal made between the government of Thailand and government of Qatar. Why Thailand? Well, there's a Thai executive committee member who votes for the World Cup. We're talking about fighter jets being sold by the government of France to the Government of Qatar. Again, there's a Frenchman, who sits on that executive committee and votes for the World Cup in Qatar. And again, while these are all - I say this with a legal hat on - these are all allegations; these are all denied by the parties involved, there are many people who basically boil the question of how did we get here down to dollars and cents.

Matthew Sherwood 07:48
And I think, yes, and thank you for those caveats because we do need to make those - I don't know, I think we have a large enough presence that we - even us have to acknowledge that these are allegations and they have been denied almost to a tee. And actually, there's something on that I want to talk about later. But so, yeah, so it's money. I mean, and that's one pronunciation I cannot change. I say Adidas. Adidas is implicated in the early days - well, not implicated in terms of the frauds, but it was part of the money that flooded in. Is every kit by Adidas, in this World Cup. It certainly seems like it, you know.

Miles Coleman 08:36
No, it's not quite every. But, like, but that's - I love that because that's what we found, is that once you learn about the links between Adidas - and I'm sorry, I'm gonna say Adidas...

Matthew Sherwood 08:45
That's okay!

Miles Coleman 08:45
But once you learn about how far back the links between FIFA and Adidas go that, you know, in the 70s, and even before, Adidas bosses and executives, were trying every trick in the book to insinuate themselves into the world of global sports. And yes, that did involve, you know, the accusations of the Adidas executive, Joao Havelange never put out a tender, and it involved wining and dining executives and so on. When you learn about that, those accusations that go back sort of over, you know, about 50 years, and you see the amount of Adidas that is at the stadium today - Adidas are still an official FIFA partner - you know, teams are dressed head to toe in Adidas. You know, Argentina, for example, I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying, that they're an Adidas team. I might be wrong about that. But yeah, you just see the sheer amount of Adidas there today, and you have to go, Wow, that was a pretty effective strategy. That those relationships that were forged then in the 70s continue to echo on today. And a lot of the story is about how Adolf Dassler, the founder of Adidas, his son, Horst Dassler, you know, was seen by some as a visionary in really kicking off sports marketing. And I think for me one of the really cool things about this project, as a football fan, is I've only ever known sport as something that's a big business with mega sponsorship, branding, and so on. But you don't actually have to go back that far to discover this kind of, you know, pre-sponsorship era, and really see the birth - and, you know, you'll know this as someone involved in kind of filmmaking and storytelling, there's nothing quite as powerful as, like, the original sin, when it comes to a story. There's nothing quite as powerful as finding, like, that moment, whatever you want to call it, the big bang, or the first spark, like the first moment where money, and big money, and big corporate interests really enter football. And that happens in FIFA, that happens with Adidas, and Coca-Cola sponsoring the World Cup. And that's all part of the journey that I think, I hope, we'll take you on to figure out how does, well, for a start, FIFA executives get arrested for corruption, and how does World Cup come to be decided, because of money. It all kind of starts there. And so, in telling the history of football, what we tried to do is kind of, you know, tell it really the history of money in football.

Matthew Sherwood 11:14
I think - well, exactly. That's the thing I was gonna say. I mean, a lot of this has already been covered quite a bit when it broke, you know, and, like I said, it was - I remember you - had completely forgotten about, but you talk about that election between Sep Blatter the head of FIFA and, was it Johansson, who is, you know, I forgot that that was like a huge story at the time, at least in sort of soccer magazines. But, you know, you, I think you're right. I mean, in terms of what your film does, and what you must have been conscious of, what are you going to be showing us that we don't necessarily already know? So, going in, did you know - I mean, did you know you're going to find out that actually, the original sin kind of goes back to money kind of flooding into the game? Maybe from the late 60s, really more of the early 70s? Or is that just part of unpeeling the onion when you get started on the project?

Miles Coleman 12:14
You know, it's a funny one from a documentary making point of view because the story of FIFA, I sometimes likened it to, like, imagine doing a documentary about the politics of Norway, right. 99% of people don't know anything about it.

Matthew Sherwood 12:28
Right.

Miles Coleman 12:28
Then you've got this, like, .5% who know a bit about it. And then you've got another .5% who know everything about it. You know, they know every name, they know every detail. So, there are plenty of people out there who watched our series, and knew a lot of these details, and knew about Horst Dassler. But, you know, I'll just talk about myself here, like, I'm a pretty big football fan, and I'd never heard the word Horst Dassler. And, you know, the second you sit down and start investigating, start reading books, and start looking at the journalists who've covered this story in the past, the Horst Dassler story, or the Johannson story, and I can pick up twenty of these examples, become fundamental. So, it's an interesting challenge from a sort of filmmaking, from a storyboarding, point of view, how do you tell a story which the vast majority of people know nothing about, but a very small group of people know everything about, and still appeal to those two audience. Because we, you know, we want to bring everyone, and especially, you know, it being Netflix, you know you're going to hit a wider audience, you're going to be hitting people who are kind of gearing up for the World Cup and see this FIFA thing and go, Hey, what's all this about, but you also want to make sure that the people - and the people who know a lot about this, by the way, are journalists and inside football people and exactly the kind of people you kind of need to get on side, if your show has any chance of being taken seriously, which I hope it has been. So, what we try to do, kind of, as from a narrative level is almost piece all of this together like a mosaic. And I think a lot of people have gone down one of these rabbit holes before; they've gone down, say, the sports marketing rabbit hole; or, they've gone down a Qatar rabbit hole, but very few have pieced it all together in this way, and shown that kind of unbroken thread from the 70s to now. So, while a lot of what we were doing wasn't necessarily an expose in the traditional sense; it wasn't brand new information. Some people knew this already. What I think we did, which was novel, was lay it all out in a linear way, in a way that kind of brought a viewer along from the very first days of FIFA all the way to the present day.

Matthew Sherwood 14:31
You know, that's an interesting point, because I'll bring in a - we have a mutual friend, Spencer Johnston, who I'll give a shout out to, and I met up with him a couple of weeks ago, and he's like, Oh, you got to check this out. Well, we knew we were going to have you on, and he says you got to check out this FIFA doc. And I said, Well, does it talk about - so, I'd gone down the Trinidad rabbit hole at some point in my life, because I said, Well, there's this guy in Trinidad who's like, really corrupt I hear and runs, you know, allegations, I should say...

Miles Coleman 15:03
No, no, he's been indicted by the FBI... You don't have to say 'allegations' for that one!

Matthew Sherwood 15:10
Okay. But he's, like, No, I, you know, but, you know, Spencer hadn't heard about this guy, but I had, you know, but it was like you say there's so many - I think - and I think we can talk more about this - but, I think there's so many - it's not so much layers, but there's so many threads to this story. That also, as you say, I mean, is it not necessarily bad that money is flooded into the game, right? You know, because it's how, I guess, how it's been managed or mismanaged, and how that money has been used. And one thing that you bring up - I've heard the term, but maybe you could explain to our audience - is this idea of 'sports washing'. And I thought that was excellent in terms of looking at that, because it's something that for some of us, we think of something that's way back in the distant past. But you could argue that Russia 2018, Qatar 2022, are our versions of that, couldn't you.

Miles Coleman 16:13
Absolutely. Yeah, sports washing, like you say, there are so many ingredients. There are so many countries and territories, and so many elements of this story that we spent a very long time, all kind of dovetailing together. I mean - and when I say a long time, like, two years, and it's me, it's the director, it's like co-producers, our editors. We're all figuring out how to hit all of these topics and themes because this is one of those stories where - to take sports washing as an example, if we'd done four episodes and not said the word sports washing, we haven't done our job right. But at the same time, you need to not only tell the story in a kind of chronological way, but you also need to tell it in an emotive way. You need to make people care about it. So, sports washing is one of those things where, like you say, it's got its roots in the past, and in a FIFA context, you know, the sort of the birth of sports washing in FIFA is the 1978 World Cup. That's where FIFA - well, the World Cup is going to be in Argentina, and there's a coup, and a military junta is installed, and it's the most appalling military junta one could imagine, and FIFA and Joao Havelange is faced with a choice, do we take the World Cup from Argentina and give it to a regime that represents our professed values, or do we keep it there? And actually, one of the clips that we found, sort of buried in the archives was Havelange saying, I kept it there because discipline of the country was so fantastic. And that was like a kind of a sea-change in sport. That went from, you know, stuff like the Hitler Olympics was almost accidental in the sense that, like, the Olympics was given to Germany; it wasn't taken away. But there wasn't a sense of, Oh, we ought to give sporting tournaments to repressive regimes because easier for us as the organizer. That's what Havelange said, and Jerome Valcke, who was the Secretary General of FIFA - one easy way to think about it, it's almost like the CEO of FIFA, the sort of the highest unelected employee of FIFA. He said the same thing about Russia and Qatar, he said, Call me crazy, but having World Cups in countries with less democracy is easier for us because we can basically do what we want. And that's a really concerning thing, because I think any sports fan likes to think that their game is pure and good and represents the positive things in life. FIFA themselves, they have these kind of platitudes, and these statutes where they say, We want football to be a force for good, and it's pretty hard to argue with that. And then on the other hand, they are not just tolerating tournaments going to repressive regimes, but actively promoting it, actively seeking that out. And so, you know, to answer your question, what, you know, what is sports washing? Sports washing on its most basic centers is repressive, or illiberal regimes using sport and the kind of reflected glory of sport to burnish their own reputations, either domestically or abroad. And I think Qatar and Russia were certainly examples of that. You know, I'd say money can't buy it, obviously Qatar spent a huge amount of money, about 300 billion dollars, hosting this World Cup, but the PR it's getting from it is arguably priceless. And, you know, you and your listeners might think, But hang on, isn't everyone criticizing Qatar right? Isn't everyone mudslinging Qatar? And I think that's almost like, that's one way of looking at sports washing, is does the person on the street, does the man or woman on the street go away with a warm, fuzzy feeling of Qatar? This is a level above that. When Qatar are using sport for political purposes, what they're talking about is almost like a national security level. It's about making concrete Qatar sovereignty. So, before 2022, no one's really heard of Qatar. You're not really sure where it is. Now, everybody knows where Qatar is. Knows it's a sovereign nation. Knows it's important. That's a huge deal in a geopolitical sense. It sounds really simple, but that's priceless. It's about identifying Qatar's place as sort of leader of Middle Eastern politics, sort of the spearhead of Middle Eastern identity. Again, when you see how Morocco's success in the tournament has been politicized by people in the region, you know, people saying, Oh, it's great that we bought the Arab World Cup - the World Cup to the Arab world, because Morocco have done really well. Again, we start talking about in these really nationalistic terms. And basically, this is all to say that what Qatar are doing, it's not a simple case of, Oh, we're putting on a football match, so, we hope you'd like us, it's much more about sport being used on a massive geopolitical level. And again, I come back to this as a football fan, that makes me uncomfortable, because I don't want my game to be used as a kind of, you know, a political bargaining chip, I want it to be used as a game.

Matthew Sherwood 20:42
Right. And I think - and then to go back to the sort of woolly side of it - I know you said it's not that level of PR - but when it's all said and done, I mean, given this particular World Cup, I think, you know, unfortunately, or maybe, you know, decades from now, people will remember that amazing Qatar 2022, which had some of the most exciting games in any World Cup history and potentially and stuff like that. And, you know, that's - Russia was kind of similar, though they've done some things to upset that PR game that they maybe achieved. I think this takes us to a good point for a quick break for our listeners. So, we'll be right back with Miles Coleman, producer and writer of the new Netflix docu-series - not that new, it's been out for a month, FIFA Uncovered, currently streaming on Netflix.

Factual America Midroll 21:41
You're listening to Factual America, subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @alamopictures to keep up-to-date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew Sherwood 22:00
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Miles Coleman, producer and writer of the new Netflix docu-series, FIFA Uncovered. So, Miles, we've been talking about sports washing, and it's interesting because I think it's, I don't know if his official title was CEO but the CEO of the Qatar bid is interviewed a few times. Talks about - that's the other thing, you know, a lot of this marketing says sports in their blood, that's why they want to bring the game. Is corruption in FIFA’s DNA?

Miles Coleman 22:36
Oof, that's a big question. One that will have lawyers all across the world waiting with bated breath to see how he sticks his foot in it! I mean, I'm gonna you know, honestly, no. Corruption should not be - it should not be in the DNA that's pretty self-explanatory. But, like, FIFA started as an amateur organization up until relatively recently, and I say relatively recently, up until the 70s. But for the first 70 years of its history, it is not an organization that is sort of about money. It's not its raison d'etre. It's basically - its existence is about making sure that Team A can play Team B in a cup.

Matthew Sherwood 23:18
Right.

Miles Coleman 23:19
And so, to say it was sort of corrupt from its founding would be - that would be - wouldn't be fair. But what I think is really interesting from a storytelling perspective, and, you know, if you have listeners who are listening to this going, Well, I'm not sure if I want to watch FIFA Uncovered, because I'm not that into football. What I would say is that 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. And I like to think of this as a petri dish. And when we were sort of putting the documentary together that's how we saw it. It was a laboratory for corruption and the human condition and unchecked greed. And what gives it that little extra ingredient is that football is so beloved, nobody wanted to check on FIFA. Nobody wanted to kick the tires and see what, you know, look under the hood and see what was going wrong. Arguably, the reason the whole thing came falling down is because the FBI, based in America, where, you know, football is not a sacred cow, were able to get involved in this and work relatively undetected. And if you look around the world, there have always been corruption probes about football, but they've been so heavily politicized, because so many people in those countries go, Don't touch my game. I don't care how it's run. I just care if my team wins. And America never really had that attitude. So, is FIFA corrupt to its soul? No, but does FIFA have the conditions around it to allow corruption to thrive? Yes. And it still does, in my opinion.

Matthew Sherwood 24:55
And to this point you're making about what the film's about and a study of in human nature. And let's go to this period that has been documented where, obviously FIFA had its issues with corruption and these sorts of things. You get almost all the - I mean, almost all the people that are involved, go on camera. How did you manage that? I mean, speaking of lawyer, you've mentioned lawyers a few times. I mean, they must have their lawyers just off to the side thinking, Oh, my God, why is Sep Blatter deciding to be interviewed for this documentary?

Miles Coleman 25:33
So, let me start with the flip side, which is, of course, we didn't quite get everyone. A couple of individuals who we didn't get, like Jack Warner, who I chatted to on the phone, and we went to Trinidad, and that was a whole experience. And Michel Platini was the second one, you know, out of the fifty names that we wanted to get, I think we didn't get two, and those were those two, and I almost think it reflects worse on them, given that 48 of them did speak. But in terms of people we speak - yeah, you know, a lot of people asked me that, and I - look, as a producer, I'd love to say, the reason we got them is because I'm brilliant at my job, but the reality is, these are individuals who like publicity, who like the limelight, who made their career through talking, and, you know, they are politicians. Politicians, what they do is they get up in the morning, they put on their tie and they talk in front of cameras. To them a camera is like giving a carpenter a hammer, it is their tool of work. And a lot of these individuals feel that they have done nothing wrong. They feel maligned. They feel like they have done very good jobs. They are surrounded, by the way, by people who tell them that all day long. So, why were people agreeing to speak and, you know, like you say, speaking pretty freely, it's not like they were kind of sat with lawyers next to them saying, Do this do that. No, the reason is because they feel untouchable. They feel very adept in front of cameras, and they generally feel that they have a positive story to tell that isn't being heard. And from our side, you know, I sympathize to a certain extent with that. And we wanted to give people a platform. These are people who've been judged in the court of public opinion for many, many years. And we wanted to give them a platform to really give their side of the story, especially now the dust has settled. Asking Blatter for his opinion in 2015, when all this was hitting the fan, very different to 2022 and he can sort of call it how he sees it. And, you know, he was saying stuff in our interview that, whether you agree with it or not, I found utterly compelling; him saying, I don't take responsibility for what happens. You know, you can say that that's not fair. But you can't say that's not what Sepp Blatter truly thinks. I think that was his honest assessment of it.

Matthew Sherwood 27:45
Well, that's what I was going to ask because I want to talk a little more about Blatter, and the rest, but, I mean, this isn't a Robert McNamara fog of war moment. I mean, he's, if I'm - spoiler alert - but it's in other ways, in some ways more compelling, because of, as you say, they're all - most of them are accused - they all express their innocence. But it seems they also acknowledge that - seems like everyone else may have had their issues, but they were okay - you know, that what they did wasn't wrong. So, they're unrepentant for - Not that that's what we're looking for, necessarily, but do they firmly - So, do you think Sepp - let's take Sepp Blatter as an example, do you think he literally thinks he did nothing wrong?

Miles Coleman 28:29
Sepp Blatter looks at this and goes, all these people were arrested, and I wasn't one of them. He thinks I've never been found guilty of a crime. He was tried in Switzerland in the summer of 2022, for fraud. Found not guilty. And he looks at it - and by the way, you know, he's not the only one. There are plenty of people who agree with this. And he would say there is a reason that you can go into any cafe or bar or restaurant from Bolivia to Bhutan and talk about football, and that's because it grew under my watch. He would say he left FIFA richer, more famous, football players have got better, different - you know, he would look at something like Morocco, going through to the World Cup semi-finals and playing in about an hour as we record, he would look at that as a marker of his own success, his very deliberate policy to develop football in nations that were outside of the Global North. Now, whether that is true or not, again, I'm almost pulling to one side and saying when I step into his psychology, I can absolutely believe that he thinks that, and even if there's a part of himself that doubts it, he is so adept at selling himself that that's the message he's going to push all day long, which makes for us as filmmakers, an incredibly compelling interview. You know, you're meeting someone who has that almost Trumpian ability to block out all of the externalities, all of the noise, all of - and simply focus on pushing himself and his, you know, his personal brand, his political legacy. It's a remarkable study again, in just politics and politicians.

Matthew Sherwood 30:02
I mean, exactly. And it's not - and should stress to those who haven't seen it, it's not just Blatter, it's most of them, if not all of them, to a tee. They all have the same sort of - I don't know what it is, but the skill or whatever it is to...

Miles Coleman 30:20
My people, we call it chutzpah.

Matthew Sherwood 30:22
Chutzpah. Well, yeah, your people, okay. Now that I know that you're a remember of the tribe. Yes, it is chutzpah. It's yeah, hubris, whatever.

Miles Coleman 30:33
The thing that's amazing about that as well, is, like, let's take someone like Ricardo Teixeira who appears in our documentary very briefly, right; he's in, maybe, 90 seconds of screen time tops. He is a behemoth of a figure in world football. He is worth hundreds of millions. He is accused of astonishing crimes by the US Department of Justice. And he's but a small part of our documentary. If you were to - when we made our list - starting list of the sort of 700 people we wanted to speak to the most, or 700 people involved in the story, the top 200 are such colossally important figures, it's kind of hard to imagine - you know, you expect this pyramid organization: that's Blatter at the top and everyone doing their bidding - the top 3-400 People in FIFA are so unbelievably important. And so aware of their self-importance, it answers a question of both how-why did they choose to appear in our documentary, but also to answer the questions of how did FIFA grow to the point where it just collapsed under itself, its own self-importance. The people involved were such - I mean, it was the atmosphere around them was such sort of alpha male testosterone, money. And when you watch the World Cup, I would encourage your listeners, to watch the World Cup with those eyes and look at those VVIP seats, that band of seats around the halfway line. And those shots of the guys sat in the big, comfy armchairs, and just, you know, just let that self-importance just drip through the coverage. It's just incredible.

Matthew Sherwood 32:08
That's exactly where I always remember seeing Michel Platini, and I guess he's not there anymore, or in those seats, or does he get to still show up? Because he's suspended along...

Miles Coleman 32:16
He's banned from football.

Matthew Sherwood 32:18
But yeah, so, but, yeah, I think - and just to raise this point that you just raised just now. I mean, it's a political doc. It is, in that sense, you know, it is very much this unknown government that we never really knew kind of existed, you know, and that - I think that's another thing yours does. I mean, people have heard about scandals. Maybe they've heard different things but that it's all the - like you said human nature, and how people interact with each other, and the wheeling and dealing to win this office, that Blatter, and now Infantino, holds, and Havelange before Blatter...

Miles Coleman 33:01
It's pure politics. It's pure, uncut Colombian politics. It's mad! And it, you know, there are all these, like, little stories, like, for example, no building in the world has ever had diplomatic immunity, other than, of course, an embassy. Except for FIFA. FIFA has had two different Confederation buildings have diplomatic immunity. CONMEBOL in South America, and today, the only building in the world with full diplomatic immunity is the CAF headquarters in Cairo. That means that if the head of CAF were to butcher his deputy, in the basement, he couldn't be arrested by the police. Like, when you talk about politics - like, that is political immunity, that's political clout. And it's, you know, from our side, it's just staggering, that their duty to organize football matches has grown into this.

Matthew Sherwood 33:52
And if that happened, you'd have another doc on your hands, wouldn't you. [Laughter]

Miles Coleman 33:56
Yeah.

Matthew Sherwood 33:56
I mean, how did this project come about? I mean, besides, you know, saying, Hey, wait a minute, there's a World Cup in Qatar in three and a half years or whatever. Because, you know, it's not that - it wasn't the easiest doc to make, I imagine.

Miles Coleman 34:13
No, no. As you said that I just suddenly had the sort of Vietnam style flashback start flooding over me. All of the sleepless nights. And, you know, we did this over a pandemic as well, which, I know is not very, pretty dull to talk about, but a lot of it was done, like, you and I talking now just, you know, over Zoom. And that was very hard. You know, it's one thing to sort of investigate corruption and get all these people to sit. It's another to do it and make sure that none of them get Covid. And by the way, they're all pretty senior citizens. So, that wasn't - that was a real serious consideration. I mean, the sort of the genesis of the project was that Dan, the director, and John, fellow producer who have been making films together for about 18 years, with a sport focus at the heart of it, had always kind of had their eye on this story, and David Conn, who's a story consultant and appears very prominently in the documentary, he wrote a book about the fee for corruption scandals that was published in 2017. And that, you know, it's not the documentary of the book, but that book was very much the kind of the starting whistle to use a football metaphor.

Matthew Sherwood 35:18
And those, I mean, there's that, but there's a couple - there's two or three books that are mentioned. Do you recommend them? Are they all worth a read? I mean, this kind of thing.

Miles Coleman 35:27
I do. And I think what's fun about the books is every author takes a different position on it. So, David Conn's book is a very sort of, you know, it focuses on the FIFA politics and what happened in the halls of FIFA. And then you've got Ken Bensinger's book, who is a much more US focus. It talks about Chuck Blazer and Jack Warner, and also the Latin American corruption, which we don't get into as much but how the Latin American sports marketing agencies work racking up these enormous, enormous kind of bills on corruption. And the stories there are just absolutely jaw dropping. And then you've, you know, they're - what's amazing about FIFA is that every single country is in FIFA. So, every country has its own little mini Russian doll version of this scandal with its complete but, you know, with their own sets of characters. I can remember filming in Uruguay for this, and hearing about, like, the Uruguayan head of their Football Association. And it's, like, we could franchise this documentary out to every single country and just make a story about their own football association because they're all so kind of, they're all so mad. So, yeah, like one, you know, in all seriousness, one of the things that I hope our documentary does is serve as a primer, as a playing field level for people to go out and learn more. Our documentary is, you know, it's a 1%. It's the overview. It's the 30,000 foot view. There are so many more interesting stories out there for people to go and discover. I hope they do that.

Matthew Sherwood 36:57
Okay. And in terms of telling that story, we've touched on this a few times. But, you know, it would have been very - it's not, as you said, it's not a straightforward story. There's a lot of threads there. Dan Gordon was - so, he did Hillsborough with John Battsek, didn't he?

Miles Coleman 37:18
Right. Yeah.

Matthew Sherwood 37:19
I mean, what - I mean, back to this whole conversation about the political doc and individuals. I mean, did you - you do hear his voice now and then, in talking with the subjects, there is an effort to push them to answer questions, but they don't, they don't bite.

Miles Coleman 37:39
I know what you're getting at, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The philosophy behind the doc, if that's not too pretentious or grand a word was, it's not, it was never designed to be one of those projects where we get nasty people up on stage and berate them and do the documentary equivalent of throwing rotten tomatoes at them in the town square. We could have done that. That like, you know, that was available to us. But it really wasn't the idea of the doc. The idea of the documentary is we wanted the people who were in the room, who saw this unfold, tell their version of the story, and tell it in their own words, and put all of those pieces together in a way that not only literally tells, you know, narrates a story, but also shows the different versions and shows the, you know, the different perspective and often the cognitive dissonance of those involved, and allows the audience to make up their own mind. Now, I know that for some people, they might have watched the documentary and gone, I wish they just yelled at Person X. I wish they had just shamed Person Y, but that really wasn't the kind of the guiding - and it's never really been Dan's style either. And in certain interviews, I think where that does come out is people are almost left to explain themselves into a trap. They are given the room. And I think, personally, as a documentary viewer, I think that's often more powerful. It's not about the filmmaker, it's about the people involved in front of the camera.

Matthew Sherwood 39:04
Well, no, I would, I mean, just personally, I would completely agree with you. I thought that was extremely well done. And that's - it kind of - not that it surprised me, because I would expect it from you all, but I think it was also, no, no, I see where this is going. I mean, and how it's being - and then just the - and not the, you know, it wasn't even down to editing, just this guy has this story, and then you turn right around and someone else says in the same room, same conversation has a totally different story, which is life, we often encounter this. And to see, yeah, whether, you know, make up our own minds, but just to even - it's this personality study that's just absolutely compelling.

Miles Coleman 39:45
I hope people can see that there's a degree of, you know, we really respect people who sit and tell their stories. They give up their time. They give up their thoughts, and this was no joke for a lot of people. You know, there are plenty people involved in this who suffered greatly as a result, and whether you like someone or not, it's by-the-by; there's absolutely - like, we wanted to cut the process with pathos, respect for people who were giving their time, respect for their opinions and their views, and very much let the audience decide. I think that's not only like ethical filmmaking, I actually think it makes for the best film end product.

Matthew Sherwood 40:18
Yeah, you know, more than one of these, some of them crusty old characters, get a tear come to the eye. I mean, they obviously lived through this, and it's had different - you know, how it's impacted them. So, I agree. I agree. Now, I mean, in terms of, you know, Ventureland, and I know, you're kind of relatively, well, I wouldn't say early stage your career, but you're, you know, I mean, what are you learning? What is the key to getting a - I guess there's two questions: what's the key to a good doc? And then what's the key to getting a doc financed and made, which are probably two very different questions, but what are you learning as you go down this journey?

Miles Coleman 41:03
That's a good question. What makes a good documentary? Absolutely no idea. And anyone who tells you that they have a clue is lying! It changes all the time. That's one of the most amazing things about documentaries. If you look at where documentary is now, at the end of 2022, and where it was five years ago, and 10 years ago, it's such different places. People want such different things. And we also know, the documentary industry, that hit - absolutely had these sort of ripple effects, you know, the success of something like Tiger King has bought a wave of projects that are very much trying to follow that style, the success of Tinder Swindler will do the same. And, in some ways, what we want to do at Ventureland is kind of stay true to the stuff that we like. So, again, that style of filmmaking that I think we all bought to this, the whole team: prosaic, thoughtful, considered. It's sort of something that's always run through certainly John and Dan's work. But no one knows what makes a good documentary. You don't know until you see it. I mean, with days to go on the edit of this, we're all - as everyone is on every project - just tearing your hair out going, God, I hope this works. And you're just sort of smashing it all together. And then you step back, and you hope that people enjoy it. And it's been really gratifying to see that people seem to have enjoyed this. And the second question was...

Matthew Sherwood 42:27
How do you get it financed and made, because there's a lot of - I think there's probably a lot of great ideas out there that never see the light of day, and there's like, not to name names, but there's some stuff that you wonder how it gets made, you know, sometimes. So, to put it...

Miles Coleman 42:43
Absolutely. It's such a moving target. And it changes. And I think what's really interesting is how, as we move towards that stream of model data is influencing what gets made. And that means often things that are, that will be very popular can trump stuff that is, you know, more, how can I put this, just more unique. You know, I can't imagine walking into a room tomorrow and pitching a documentary about beekeepers and honey in northern Macedonia, right. Like, I look at that, and I love that film. I loved Honeyland, and I don't know how it was made, because it was just - it's such a unique idea. But that's, again, one of the wonderful things about documentaries. It has the ability to confound, and you can expect the unexpected. And I think what's interesting about documentary, especially now is how, in a world where you open up Netflix, and you've got FIFA Uncovered, and then you've got, I don't know, the next Marvel film, or you've got The Crown, right Our documentary has to be as entertaining, as bombastic and sexy and thrilling as anything with a 200 million dollar budget and actors and a script that's literally written down. And so, to that extent, I mean, I think the FIFA story is an example of a story where it just from the moment you sink your teeth into it, it feels stranger than fiction. It feels more entertaining than any script one could ever write. And those stories are out there. That's what our day job is, is trying to figure those out. And, you know, I think that the future is amazingly bright for documentaries, and I love the fact that, you know, when one of the comments I read a lot on Twitter, and I probably shouldn't have scrolled Twitter as much as I did when this was out but I did; it's like, it's unavoidable, was people saying, Okay, now do a FIFA Uncovered for this, do a FIFA Uncovered for the political scandal in my city or for my football club or whatever it was; like, people want more documentaries made about the topics that interest them, rather than where I think the conversation was like ten years ago, which was Okay, when are we going to do a movie of this; like, who's going to play Chuck Blazer? I didn't read that that much. It didn't feel like that was the natural next step of documentaries. Much more like, Okay, let's do a new documentary for this topic or that topic.

Matthew Sherwood 45:02
I think be hard to - excuse me - it'd be hard to find someone to play Chuck Blazer, but anyway.

Miles Coleman 45:07
I've heard rumors of Will Ferrell!

Matthew Sherwood 45:09
Oh, wow. Yeah, I could - with the fat suit, yeah, that could - yeah. You never know. With that, I think we're coming to the end of our time together, Miles, believe it or not, but I like doing this thing where I look at people's IMDb profiles or even Wikipedia profiles and seeing how much of it is accurate. But...

Miles Coleman 45:32
I don't have a Wikipedia. I'm nowhere near important enough to have a Wikipedia.

Matthew Sherwood 45:36
There's some people who are not important at all who have large Wikipedia pages. But, I think it looks like you've got the dream job. You're making films about football and James Bond. I mean, that would be a lot of people's dream. But what's next for you? And Ventureland? Can you say anything about projects you're working on now?

Miles Coleman 45:57
Well, we've had the premiere, the London premiere, for our Abbey Road documentary, If These Walls Could Sing, was on Monday night, and was just an absolute joy to work on. Because, yeah, music. Music is a big passion but also definitely kept me sane and optimistic during the making of this. I sort of likened making FIFA Uncovered to being a vegan in a sausage factory. I mean, it's just - it will get to you. So, I'm very - the next thing I'm working on is a football project, which I can't talk too much about, but I hope it will restore my faith in the beautiful game after three years of taking a bruising. We've got some really fun music projects lined up, and all sorts of things, and, yeah, I mean, I think anyone who grew up watching football, and grew up watching sport, it's such a joy and a privilege to work in it, and even the darker side feels important and relevant and purposeful, which is great.

Matthew Sherwood 46:57
Okay, so, one last question. I'm going to put you on the spot. We're down to Argentina, France and Morocco who's going to win? Because this is - keep in mind this is probably going to air afterwards, so it's like...

Miles Coleman 47:07
Yeah, so, I'm gonna record three different versions. It's gonna be Morocco to win 4-1, and then I wanted you to edit that. This guy's a savant. I spent a lot of time in Argentina, have good friends in Argentina. My heart says Argentina, and I've done a film about, like, about Messi, and I love the idea of Argentina winning it, and Messi just sort of riding out on a golden horse, but ain't going to happen. It's going to be France to beat Argentina in the final. It'll be Gallic, and it'll just be the footballing equivalent of a Gallic shrug, just like a universal Gallic shrug. I hate to say that and then if I'm wrong, like, this will be a permanent record that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to football and many things, but I think it's France. Yourself? What do you reckon?

Matthew Sherwood 47:57
Yeah, I'm kind of similar to you. I do want Argentina to do it. I mean, I think if anything, Messi is really showing us how to go out, how to age gracefully as a footballer, I must say. I mean obviously he's got the talent, but, yeah, you know, would like to see Argentina pull it off but I do have this sneaking suspicion that you're correct about France at the end of the day. And at least I control the - literally control the narrative here so I can re-record this, and be right in the end. But...

Miles Coleman 48:30
I just want for listeners' posterity what was actually said during the recording, as Matthew said, Morocco to win the World Cup. Anything that comes out is a very dubious reason.

Matthew Sherwood 48:40
Because he's an American, he has no clue what he's talking about.

Miles Coleman 48:44
He said he was a football fan, but, you know, we don't buy it. Not in that...

Matthew Sherwood 48:48
Not at all. Not at all. I mean, I mean, just real quick. You mentioned, you've worked on a Messi doc, did you meet him? Did you work with...?

Miles Coleman 48:55
No, no, we went to - it was one of my, like, first jobs, and we went to, we went to Rosario and we filmed in his hometown, and we filmed on the street where he grew up. And I've never actually met him. Prior to this, I've got to meet a lot of footballers that I like and admire, and I've never met him, and everyone who knows him says, Yeah, you don't really get to talk to him about much. He's not one of the world's great conversationalists. It's not like Muhammad Ali, where it's, you know, you want to, like, sit around the dinner table with him forever and ever. But that being said, the man is really good at kicking a ball into a net. So, let's hope he does it on a bigger stage.

Matthew Sherwood 49:30
Amen. Well, Miles, thank you so much. Just to remind our listeners and viewers we've been talking with Miles Coleman, producer and writer of the Netflix docu-series, FIFA Uncovered. Do check it out. It's well worth a watch. Even if you're not a football, soccer fan, sports fan, whatever. It is an interesting study in human nature. So, thanks again, Miles; it's a pleasure having you on, and yeah, we got kick off in just under 45 minutes, so that gives you enough time to do whatever you need to do to get settled in, and get some snacks and a beer or two or whatever your favorite beverage is.

Miles Coleman 50:08
Yeah, get to Edgware Road and watch it with a mega sandwich is I think that's the best way to watch this. Thank you so much for having me on.

Matthew Sherwood 50:16
Hey, thank you. Take care.

Matthew Sherwood 50:19
I also would like to thank those who helped make this podcast possible. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in York, England. Big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to our listeners. Many of you have been with us for four incredible seasons. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. Please also remember to like us, and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America signing off.

Factual America Outro 51:00
You've been listening to Factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television, and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, our guests, and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @alamopictures. Be the first to hear about new productions, festivals showing our films, and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk

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