How a Turkish chef “annoyed” FIFA with a shameful trick after the World Cup final

A scandal is now raging in the football world, which could become the most powerful echo of the last World Cup. They even talked about exceeding the powers of the chief football official. And all after the antics of the popular Turkish chef, who became famous for his manner of salting meat. About the secret football kitchen, where cups, stars and culinary specialists mixed up – in the material of Alexander Tuzikov.

Fashionable Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe is not only a master of cutting meat, but also a maestro of scandalous self-promotion. Moments after the end of one of the best matches in history, when Argentina took the World Cup, the culinary chef entered a specially protected area, grabbed someone else’s trophy with his hands, kissed it and even salted it, as he always does during his restaurant shows.

This is a gross violation of the rules. Only those who won it, as well as the FIFA president and the head of the country whose team won, can touch the cup.

“The security service – there are too many liberties when an outsider enters the territory of the awards. This is nonsense for me. And I know that among us – well, coaches, players – this topic is discussed a lot”– said the Soviet and Russian football coach Valery Nepomniachtchi.

Goekce is not a stranger in the world of football: Neymar, Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski go to him to eat meat. But this self-promotion went sideways to the chef: subscribers on social networks severely criticized him for impermissible impudence: “Not a champion should not touch the World Cup.”

Even the great Leo Messi eight years ago, when his team lost to the Germans in the final, only allowed himself to glance over the coveted trophy. FIFA launched an internal investigation into how the Turkish culinary found himself next to the sports shrine. The scandal can now reach the very top.

“There are suspicions that, perhaps, this is somehow with FIFA President Gianni Infantino. There are photographs where they pose together. Apparently, they have a warm relationship. And. perhaps somehow he took advantage of this friendship to somehow penetrate on the field”– says Konstantin Alekseev, head of the Sport-Express football department.

Goekce’s act raised a storm of discussion in the football world about the extent of bribery and lobbying among sports officials.

Fraud, laundering of proceeds from crime, racketeering, tax evasion… The International Football Federation has become a full-fledged criminal organization, synonymous with corruption, say the creators of the film Fifa Uncovered. This is an artistic reimagining of FIFA Gate, a lawsuit that started in June and ended in July of this year.

The former head of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, was called the main patron of corrupt officials, he was expected to go to jail for 75 years, but the Swiss court dropped all charges against him. The investigation of corruption in FIFA in 2015 turned into a real information bomb. Then dozens of officials were arrested, some sat down, but most remained at large, having paid a bail of hundreds of thousands of euros. And now former functionaries say: the practice of kickbacks has become ubiquitous in the sports structure.

The British media tried to inflate a corruption scandal on the story of how Qatar won the right to the World Cup. London could not forgive Doha that she allegedly took away from him the right to host the World Cup. And the appearance of the film Fifa Uncovered seems to signal that the European Union does not stop trying to discredit the championship held in Qatar through accusations of FIFA corruption.