FIFA is currently embroiled in an international corruption scandal, which is comprehensively explained here by Matt Yglesias and Joseph Stromberg. Corruption expands well beyond soccer in professional sports: we’ve seen cover-ups of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball and cycling, and even of sexual molestation and bribes in college football.
Let’s say you want to pursue a conversation about international sports corruption with one of the billions of soccer fans in the world, but you yourself are not a soccer fan and you missed the boat on the 2014 World Cup.
First, don’t feel embarrassed. The fact is, as popular as soccer is outside the United States, soccer has a long way to go before it’s America’s football (or, more appropriately, fútbol).
Second, here is how to pronounce FIFA: the acronym sounds like fee and fuh combined (the latter is also the correct pronunciation of pho, which is a great soup).
Third, here is the incorrect pronunciation of FIFA: it is not pronounced like the figh in the word fight. In case you need proof, watch this official and scary FIFA video published on May 23, 2015.
Remember: there’s no bitter fighting in FIFA ... except when there is.
