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17/10/08 - Dana: Organised crime blocks international expansion
Corruption and organised crime have hampered the UFC’s international expansion efforts, says UFC president Dana White.
He cited Japan’s yakuza mafia as an example and blamed it for the demise of PRIDE FC following last year’s Zuffa takeover.
“We had plans for Pride, we were going to do Japanese shows, but the mafia runs that place and it is very hard to do business over there,” he said. “That basically killed the brand.”
The UFC has also long had its eye on staging events in Mexico because, as White puts it, “when we first bought this company, we said there are three no-brainers: the US, Mexico and the UK. They are big fight countries.”
However, what he terms “The Mexican initiative” is taking “a lot longer than we though it would, basically because five families control all of Mexico”.
“A lot of these places are tough, you just have to work your way around it. The corruption in Japan, the way things are in Mexico, you know? In every country you go to there are different ways of doing business.”
John Joe O’Regan
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