hi clo,
i think the intervention is going to prove controversial. football isn't really an american sport. it's not a leading power in football. there are a bunch of folks from different countries being arrested by american justice as if they are subject to us law. my guess is this will be a big part of a defence against extradition.
regardless of whether fifa was a rogue organisation, which it has appeared to be for some time, the us will damage itself further by treating foreigners as subject to us law.
i know this approach has damaged the us in the eyes of uk citizens. all sorts of cases of extradition that us citizens don't hear about but which enrage people in the uk.
the cost is borne in future decisions regarding the us within those countries. eg americans find it hard to understand why the uk recently joined a chinese banking group. it's possibly partly because the us treats other countries as if they have no choices beyond us control. and they do. the uk has its own interests.
if the us argument is that writing an email and sending it means a person operated in the us because the email passed through a us server, i think that's going to be treated as a flimsy argument. it ought to. users don't know how email systems are structured and shouldn't have to know. so it will be interesting to see whether the extraditions actually happen.
having said that, i think it is good news that fifa is being cleaned up. but why the heck wasn't it the swiss who did it?
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