June 16, 2022 • 30 mins
Chuck Blazer was one of the most powerful men in international soccer - or football, as most of the world knows it. As a member of FIFA’s executive committee, he was among an elite few who managed the World Cup, the globe’s ultimate sporting competition. To his fellow Lords of Soccer, Blazer was loyal; and like many of them, he was utterly corrupt. In November 2011, two federal agents stopped the eccentric sports executive outside his Trump Tower apartment. They offered him a deal - spill the tea on FIFA’s secret world of bribes and money laundering or go to prison for tax fraud. Blazer took the deal, setting in motion the largest international corruption investigation in history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want you to picture something. Imagine a child somewhere
anywhere in the world playing soccer. What do you see?
A girl running drills on a grass soccer pitch, a
boy and his friend kicking a ball around an alleyway,
or having a game on a dirty, dusty lot. What
(00:22):
you probably didn't imagine are men in suits handing out
bribes in the form of envelopes full of cash. And
why would you That has nothing to do with the game, right,
But it does, And that's what this story is all about.
(00:43):
The story of soccer, or football, as most of the
world knows it is one of contradictions. There is the
pure joy of the game, the beautiful game, the ballet
of the masses that has made soccer a truly global
sport with billions of fans. And then there are those men,
(01:03):
and they were all men. They're the ones behind the
World Cup, soccer's ultimate contest. They are the lords of soccer,
and they've pocketed millions of dollars while failing to live
up to the basic standards of the game itself. This
is the story of how their agreed finally caught up
with him. Yeah, it's it's ultimate game. Is doing a
(01:26):
really excellent job. Playing fair may have cost Australia a
chance to host the World Cup. Crisis of corruption on
full display for the world. The game was hijack. Keith's
alleged tradition of bribery is taking a real human toll.
I'm very proud of our accomplishments. I'm Connor Powell. This
(01:46):
is episode one The Inside Man. It's a brisk November
evening in the year two thousand and eleven. An electric
scooter rolls slowly across the pink and rose colored marble
lobby of the fifty eight story Trump Tower in downtown Manhattan.
(02:09):
The man on the scooter is Chuck Blazer. He's a
rare American on FIFA's Executive Committee for nearly twenty years.
He's traveled the world by private jet, stayed in five
star hotels, and rubbed elbows with a host of celebrities,
sports stars, and world leaders. On this crisp Autumn night, Blazer,
(02:31):
with a head of hair and beard as bushy and
white as Santa Clauss, is making his way to Uncle Jack's,
a posh New York steakhouse on the West Side. He's
joined by friends, including the woman he's dating the former
soap opera actress Marylynn Blanks. Because of his weight, which
has balloon to more than four hundred pounds, he relies
(02:54):
on a mobility scooter for assistants. Like many FIFA executives,
Blazers now in restaurants around the world for spending thousands
of dollars on food, alcohol, and pretty much whatever the
hell he wanted. In New York, Blazer was known as
much for his love of strip clubs as he was
for his love of Max, his blue and gold pet parrot.
(03:17):
Max was regularly seen around town sitting on Blazer's shoulder.
On this fateful night, Max the parrot was left upstairs
in one of Blazers too yes to luxury Trump Tower apartments. Combined,
they cost nearly two thousand dollars a month. One of
(03:37):
the apartments was just for his cats, who apparently paid
a lot, and so we're rewarded with a residence of
their own. You might be wondering, like I did, how
this morbidly obese, clearly eccentric American sports marketing executive from Queens,
New York ended up on soccer's international governing council. You
(03:59):
might also asked, how can he afford such luxuries like
two penthouse apartments in downtown Manhattan. The federal agents, one
from the Internal Revenue Service and the other from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, have been wondering the same thing.
They were waiting for Blazer in the atrium of Trump
Tower that very night. Looking every bit the part of
(04:23):
Gemen and their conservative business suits, they approached the surprise
Blazer as he and his friends were leaving the building
through its obnoxious gold awning entrance on East fifty six Street.
Steve Berryman of the i r S and Jared Randall
of the FBI introduced themselves. They told Blazer they were
(04:43):
investigating corruption in international soccer and especially at FIFA. Blazer froze,
his face turned white. They informed them the I r
S couldn't find any records of him paying US taxes
for years now. Meeting outside of the glitsee Trump Tower
(05:05):
would have been an awkward place to cry poverty, and anyways,
Blazer was too proud of his extravagant life that he
had built to pretend it didn't exist. Blazer always knew
this day might come. He was always really fundamentally insecure.
That's Mary Pappenfuss. She co wrote the book about Blazer
(05:26):
called American Huckster. How Chuck Blazer got rich from and
sold out the most powerful cabal in world sports. And
he told mary Lynn that he was afraid people are
going to finally find out who he was. And she said,
who's that? And he said, just a fat crook from Queens.
And I think that was his self image. He was
a fat crook from Queens. He's gonna grab whatever he
(05:49):
could when he could just gonna, you know, go to
the wall and maybe die before anyone caught him. Berryman
handed Blazer a white legal document. The subpoena ordered him
to turn over all of his financial records. Blazer was
facing at least thirty years in jail just for tax
evasion and more many more. If the rumors of fraud,
(06:12):
money laundering, racketeering that swirled around his time at FIFA
we're true. That's why the FBI was there. But Randall
and the FBI worn't after just Blazer. They had much
bigger designs. So they made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
(06:33):
It was maybe a thirty forty minute meeting and they said,
we can arrest you right now or you can wear
a wire, And he said, I'll wear a wire. In
a heartbeat, FIFA's extraordinary greed was about to catch up
with them. Blazer was just a vulnerable link in a
corrupt chain, a pressure point the FBI and I r
(06:54):
s could use to expose the wider fraud they had
suspected for years. For decades, the rules of the game
had been rigged by FIFA. For FIFA, maybe it was inevitable,
given the organization's history of playing footsie with murderous dictators
and shady oligarchs. So let me take you back to
the beginning of two thousand and eleven when it all
(07:17):
really began to unravel for Blazer and ultimately for FIFA itself.
It started when Blazer's longtime soccer partner, Jack Warner, was
caught with envelopes full of cash trying to buy FIFA's
presidential election. But before we go too deep into our story,
let me first explain what FIFA is besides the letters
(07:38):
you see printed on official soccer balls. The Federation International
Day Football Association was founded in in Paris. It runs
international soccer, the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, and
a host of other smaller tournaments. Collectively, these games are
watched by more than four billion people. That's more than
(08:03):
half the planet. No surprise, then, that FIFA pulls in
billions of dollars each year, and by these measures it's
been a great success. FIFA is also an epic failure,
a testament to greed. There's long been talk of widespread corruption,
a rot at the highest levels of the organization. In
(08:25):
two thousand and fifteen, two other organizations with acronyms you
already know, the FBI and the i r S, arrested
more than a dozen former in current FIFA members on
charges of bribery, fraud, and money laundry. These arrests, many
of which can be traced back to that chilly fall
(08:46):
meeting with Blazer, rip back the curtain of institutional rot
and dirty dealings of an organization operating completely out of bounds.
(09:09):
Even over the noise of the TV, Marylynn Blanks could
hear the anger and her boyfriend, Chuck Blazer's voice as
he talked on the phone with a soccer official from
the Bahamas. Blazer's TV was always on and always loud.
It was a lot like Blazer himself, so when he
threw his phone across the penthouse bedroom. Blanks knew whatever
(09:33):
was wrong must be bad, and it was. You see,
before he agreed to be a snitch for the US government,
Blazer was a reluctant whistleblower. I mean, don't get me wrong.
You wouldn't confuse him with some do good or anti
corruption advocate. Blazer was just a crooked stuck in a
(09:55):
tug of war between two other crooks. And to understand
on how all of this fits together and why Blazer
threw his phone across his bedroom, you need to hear
about an email Blazer received a couple of weeks before
from his longtime boss, Jack Warner, a FIFA Vice president
and the head of conker CALF, the Confederation of North
(10:18):
Central America and Caribbean Association Football, one of FIFA's six
regional confederations. Blazer and Warner had been partners and allies
in world soccer since Warner was first elected the head
of Conker CALF. They had built a successful, lucrative relationship
despite being polar opposites. They seem like Mutton Jeff, really
(10:42):
very very different from completely different worlds, but for some
reason they hit it off. Blazer was this physically imposing, gregarious,
Jewish marketing executive from Queens. He made his living traveling
from sales convention to sales convention, selling you know, pretty
much anything he could. He was also a suburban soccer dad,
(11:06):
and that's when he spotted a trend that changed the
course of his life. Says Mary papin Puss. He knew
nothing about soccer, but what he did notice was that
all of these kids were playing soccer, and all of
these parents were into soccer, and he thought, this is
the future of sports. Through a combination of charisma and
(11:26):
force of will, he rose through the ranks of international soccer.
Along the way, he forged new and very profitable sponsorships
and TV marketing deals in the US and around the world.
Warner was every bit the soccer fanatic that Blazer wasn't.
He was also wired, thin, brash, a black man raised
(11:49):
Catholic who taught history on the tiny island nation of
Trinidad and Tobago. He was known most for making things
happen for himself and his friends. He's journalist Grant Wall,
who has covered international soccer for more than twenty years,
describing Warner, he was always a pretty clever, kg guy,
(12:09):
for Jack Warner, it was always about getting the best
deal for himself. Two took over the poor and historically
weak soccer federation Conker Calf. Together they built it into
a massive soccer marketing empire. In the late eighties, he
teamed up with Jack Warner, who was the president of
the Trendad and Tobago Federation, a guy who understood politics,
(12:34):
and they decided that Jack Warner would run for president
of Conkacalf, Chuck Blazer would run as general secretary, and
that they would get all the votes in the Caribbean
because Jack Warner was involved. They worked together for a
really long time, with Warner's president and Blazer's general secretary.
(12:56):
The money started rolling in. With this ring of sponsorships
and TV agreements. The duo turned the once backwater soccer
association into a revenue generating powerhouse for FIFA. These guys
were getting rich. Here's Blazer bragging about his accomplishments. Is
(13:16):
doing a really excellent job of promoting football around the world.
If I look back ten years, twenty years and see
the progress we made, I'm very proud of our accomplishments.
In the shady world of FIFA. The pair with sticky
fingers fit right in. Blazer became known as Mr ten
percent because of a contract that entitled him to a
(13:37):
ten percent commission on all of Conky Caps marketing deals
and Warner. He had long been suspected of fixing matches,
selling World Cup tickets on the black market, and even worse,
seeking gifts in return for supporting World Cup bids. Their
partnership made them fabulously wealthy, propelling them up the ranks
(13:59):
of interne national soccers ruling elite, and landed them spots
on FIFA's all powerful Executive Committee. It also earned them
the trust of President set Bladder, who led FIFA from
until two thousand and fifteen. By trust, I mean no
one got on FIFA's executive committee without bladders full support.
(14:22):
The ultimate sporting power broker, the most powerful man in
world football, Bladder, he's the mayor of World Soccer. FIFA
is his baby. He's treated as a head of state,
and he flies in private planes, and he's given great
difference around the world. Part politician and it seems to
me part mafia boss. Bladder ruled international soccer with an
(14:43):
iron fist, just like in the mafia. If you earn
for the family. The family provides for you. Warner and
Blazer owed their wealth and status to the empire. Bladder ruled.
So back to that email Warner's sent to Blazer on
(15:03):
April first, two thousand and eleven, Warner was about to
risk all of their success and possibly fortunes on a
foolish scheme. When the email first arrived, Blazer was furious
he couldn't believe what he was reading. Warner wrote in
the email that he had decided to support set Bladder's
(15:25):
challenger in the upcoming two thousand and eleven FIFA presidential election.
Jack Warner was backing Mohammad been Hammam, a long time
FIFA official and president of the Asian Soccer Federation. The
battle for the presidency has been likened to a civil
war within the organization. The then sixty two year old
(15:45):
from the oil rich nation of Qatar stood little chance
of unseating Bladder on his own, but Qatar had already
shocked the sports world once before. Do we know to
organize the two twenty to FIFA vote? Cup is Ka
That's right, just a few months before, in December of
(16:08):
two thousand and ten, the small desert nation of just
over a million and a half people was awarded the
World Cup. It lacked modern FIFA style stadiums and had
no soccer pedigree whatsoever. What Qatar did have was money,
lots of oil and gas money and a desire to
be a player on the world stage, and so too
(16:32):
did Mohammed ben Hamm, who orchestrated Qatar's World Cup winning
bid over countries like Australia, Japan, and the United States. Still,
Jack Warner's plan to back ben Hamm seemed needlessly reckless
the Blazer. As part of his scheme, Warner had invited
(16:52):
bin Hamm to Trinidad and Tobago's capital, port of Spain,
to meet with about twenty five of the Caribbean's most
important soccer bosses who would vote in the upcoming FIFA election. Together,
they could swing the vote against Bladder and in favor
of ben Hamm. In the shadowy back rooms of FIFA dealmaking.
(17:13):
That meant money, lots of money in the pockets of
soccer officials who would choose the next FIFA president. After
reading the email, a panic Blazer immediately fired off a
sarcastic response to Warner. Journalist Mary pap and Fuss saw
the email. I think this first line was I hope
(17:34):
this is an April Fool's joke, but actually was April
Fool's Day. The Warner's plan was anything but a joke.
Chuck heard about it and he was just panicky, and
he told him, we can do this more discreetly, in
a better way. He said, please, don't do this. Weeks later,
(17:56):
when Jack Warner in the Caribbean Soccer Bosses met in
Port of Spain, he barreled ahead with his plan. Warner's
lack of discretion was on full display when he told
out one million dollars on behalf of ben Hamm and
small brown paper envelopes. And that's what Blazer had learned
(18:17):
in the call that made him so angry that he
threw his phone across the room. They passed out forty
thousand dollar bribes in cash to twenty five members of
the Caribbean Football Union. One of the officials from the Bahamas,
who was in the room with Warner, had called Blazer
to tell them about the bribes. What no one knew
(18:40):
at the time but we know now was part of
the two day meeting in Port of Spain was filmed.
The audio it isn't great, But if you could see
the grainy video, you'd see a nondescriptive conference room in
Trinidad's High Regency Hotel with about two dozen and Caribbean
(19:00):
soccer officials sitting behind long rows of tables, each one
with a small bottle of water and a clear drinking
glass at their side. We do have the audio. You
can hear Jack Warner on tape brazenly urging his fellow
Caribbean soccer officials to accept the quote gift for Mohammed
bin Hammams. You want to use it. And if you
(19:28):
ever wondered what it might sound like if ethics and
integrity were blatantly mocked in the act of bribery, well
Warner happily provided a script telling anyone who considered returning
the money because of ethical concerns to go open to church.
I know that us get some people here who believe
(19:50):
the modo. If you churchmen, if you're pious, open to
church friends. No one would accuse Blazer of being pious,
And yet he was beside himself after hearing about the
bribes and the envelope stuffed with cash. His longtime partner
in crime had crossed soccer's godfather, the most powerful man
(20:14):
in world sport, Sep Bladder, Chuck Blazer, and Jack Warner
were now on opposite sides of the battle for control
of FIFA. Here again, Mary pappenfuss I think if it
had been done more discreetly, with more sophistication, and Sep
Ladder would have been lost. The position Chuck wouldn't have cared.
(20:35):
It was just it couldn't have been contained because there
were whistleblowers calling people up. So he knew he had
to come out fast on the right side. That was,
you know, the red line. Chuck had to turn Jack
in or go down in flames with him. Anxious, angry, afraid,
Blazer knew he had no choice but to report Warner
(20:58):
to FIFA's leadership. Still, he hesitated for a few days,
knowing full well that his longtime friend could be vindictive
and that Warner knew all of Blazer's personal secrets, secrets
that could in Blazer's FIFA career or even worse, Landaman prisons.
(21:18):
A frantic Blazer made a call to FIFA's Secretary General
Jerome Valk, the one man many thought could be taught
football chiefs set Blatter withdraws. Mohammed bin Hammam of Kata
says he won't stand for FIFA president. It's a last
minute decision taken just before he was due to answer
claims of corruption, and soccer's ruling bosses immediately opened an
(21:40):
ethics investigation. The FIFA scandal rumbles on. Within days, Warner
and bin Hammam were out banned from the sport. Football's
governing body is trying to tackle its shading inner workings
by suspending two executives on corruption charges. Bladder would easily
be reelected for a fourth term as FIFA's president, and
(22:03):
then he casually brushed aside the entire scandal that was
steering his sport right in the face. Here's set Bladder crisis.
What is a crisis? If somebody, if you would describe
to me what there is a crisis, then I would
answer football is not in the crisis. Blazer was hailed
(22:25):
as a hero and went before the camera as the
clean face of an organization long suspected of corruption. Um,
what can be tons playing up? Pay for what I did?
And I just to turn around and do it, expose
it where it exists. The journalist grand Wall notes the irony.
For a while, it was hilarious check Blazer was being
(22:46):
called a whistleblower when Chuck Blazer had been just as
corrupt as Jack Warner hands in hand for decades. From
the outside the chet holy Field Federal Building in Orange County, California,
(23:09):
I couldn't look more out of place. With its steep
triangular walls, it looks more like an ancient Mesopotamian temple
than the US government building. Inside, however, with its endless
bright fluorescent lights, white tile floors, and rows of cubicles,
it looks and feels like what it is. The regional
(23:31):
offices of the Internal Revenue Service in August of two
thousand and eleven, just a few months after Warner tried
to bribe those Caribbean soccer officials, Assistant Special Agent in
charge Amy shaw Billion was at her desk when she
was forwarded a news article from one of her senior agents,
Steve Berryman. You'll remember Berryman as one of the two
(23:55):
federal agents who stopped Blazer outside of Trump Tower on
that Chris November night in two thousand and eleven. Berriman
rushed into Chabillion's office to show her a news article
with the headline FBI examines US soccer bosses financial records.
The British investigative journals Andrew Jennings detailed five hundred thousand
(24:19):
dollars worth of suspicious payments made to Blazer from dodgy
Caribbean soccer officials. The British public were irate with FIFA
after losing out on the two thousand and eighteen World
Cup to Russia. Britain's press were sniffing around for stories
about FIFA corruption, confident that Russia and Qatar bribed FIFA
(24:42):
officials to win their World Cup bids. At the time,
Blazer was still flying high as the whistleblower on FIFA corruption.
Is faith for inherently corrupt. I think individuals are for
a long time followers of global sport, like Andrew Jennings,
Blazer's act was an ironic twist of events. Jennings had
(25:06):
spent the better part of the previous two decades chronicling
FIFA's shady inner workings, and had written several books about
FIFA's corruption. Jennings knew Blazer's hands were dirty. When questioned
by Jennings and other journalists, Blazer didn't deny receiving the
offshore payments, he insisted, though all the transactions were done legally.
(25:29):
Jennings new Blazer's explanation of the payments didn't add up.
Blazers carefully constructed house of cards was beginning to collapse,
not only for him but also for FIFA, and after
seeing the news that Jennings broke, Berryman, a lifelong soccer fan,
(25:49):
thought it best to look more closely at Blazer's claims.
He looked into the tax filing and discovered it there
was a really good potential for a tax case. That's
Amy Sabillian, Berryman's boss. We didn't see any open bank
accounts even in his name. From my perspective, I saw
(26:09):
somebody that was living pretty high living here in the
United States, clearly making income and not filing despite the
appearance of overflowing wealth. Remember the two Trump Tower apartments.
Blazer hadn't filed US taxes in years. Mary pap Infest
told me there's an easy explanation. Blazer's money was in
(26:33):
fact FIFA's money. He didn't spend a penny of his
own money. Conker Calf, the local FIFA organization, paid his
rent every time he went out to dinner. Everything he
ate was paid for. If the FBI was sniffing around FIFA,
as media reports suggested, and Steve Berryman had just discovered
(26:55):
a sure fire way to get inside a FIFA's inner circle,
Chuck Lazier Chabillion's office reached out to the FBI to
offer its help. The team presented it to them to
see if they were interested in inviting us into their case. Again.
The Department of Justice and the FBI have been tracking
(27:16):
FIFA's corruption for years. It's dodgy TV deals, the payments
of crooked officials in World Cup vote buying, but federal
investigators had made surprisingly little progress in their case against
the secretive international organization based in Zurich, Switzerland, a country
famous for its secretive banking system. What Berryman had uncovered
(27:39):
and was now offering the FBI was what law enforcement
agencies throughout history have needed to crack any large scale
corruption conspiracy. An inside man. Chabillion only realized later how
important the Blazer break had been. I really did not
(28:01):
understand the gravity of that connection with FIFA. There were
members of the team that we're thinking this is huge.
I remember thinking, uh, yeah, all right, you know, tax
case sounds awesome. You know, that's what I want my
agents to be working. And if it became something bigger
than all, all the better. What started as an I
(28:26):
r S investigation into an eccentric and colorful sports executive
turned into one of the largest international corruption cases in
history and would lead to dozens of FIFA officials being
charged with fraud, corruption, and money laundering. The investigation would
wipe out most of FIFA's entrenched senior leadership and exposed
(28:49):
the dark underbelly of world soccer. Butbi rate is only
the start of our story. Actually, it's more like the
middle of our story. FIFA's corruption and depravity run deeper
than money laundering and bribery. Since the nineteen fifties, FIFA's
leaders have been accused of enabling dictators and turning a
(29:12):
blind eye to gross human rights violations. Its history is
one built on colonialism and inherent racism, and maybe it's
no wonder that history led to an organization some say
looks more like the mafia than a modern sports empire.
Its top executives are accused of using the organization's vast
(29:32):
wealth to buy influence, line their pockets and remain in power.
Coming up on Episode two, A corrupt kingdom that took
decades to build comes crashing down as the Lords of
Soccer get a rude awakening from the U. S. Department
of Justice. The Lords of Soccer, How FIFA Stole the
(29:59):
Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices Media production in conjunction
with I Heart Radio. The series was written and executive
produced by Gary Scott and me Connor Powell. Logan Heftell
and Katie mcmurran provided the sound design with assistance from j. C.
Swaddick and Jake blue Note. Alec Cowen is our associate
(30:20):
producer and Jeffrey Katz was our story editor. Our fact
checker is Alexa O'Brien and thanks to Miles Gray, who
produced the series for I Heart Radio. If you have
any comments or questions, please reach out. You can find
us on Twitter. I'm at Connor m Powell and Gary
is at Gary Robert Scott and if you have any
(30:42):
stories about FIFA, let us know. If you like what
you hear, please give us a shout out at the
hashtag Lords of Soccer
I want you to picture something. Imagine a child somewhere
anywhere in the world playing soccer. What do you see?
A girl running drills on a grass soccer pitch, a
boy and his friend kicking a ball around an alleyway,
or having a game on a dirty, dusty lot. What
(00:22):
you probably didn't imagine are men in suits handing out
bribes in the form of envelopes full of cash. And
why would you That has nothing to do with the game, right,
But it does, And that's what this story is all about.
(00:43):
The story of soccer, or football, as most of the
world knows it is one of contradictions. There is the
pure joy of the game, the beautiful game, the ballet
of the masses that has made soccer a truly global
sport with billions of fans. And then there are those men,
(01:03):
and they were all men. They're the ones behind the
World Cup, soccer's ultimate contest. They are the lords of soccer,
and they've pocketed millions of dollars while failing to live
up to the basic standards of the game itself. This
is the story of how their agreed finally caught up
with him. Yeah, it's it's ultimate game. Is doing a
(01:26):
really excellent job. Playing fair may have cost Australia a
chance to host the World Cup. Crisis of corruption on
full display for the world. The game was hijack. Keith's
alleged tradition of bribery is taking a real human toll.
I'm very proud of our accomplishments. I'm Connor Powell. This
(01:46):
is episode one The Inside Man. It's a brisk November
evening in the year two thousand and eleven. An electric
scooter rolls slowly across the pink and rose colored marble
lobby of the fifty eight story Trump Tower in downtown Manhattan.
(02:09):
The man on the scooter is Chuck Blazer. He's a
rare American on FIFA's Executive Committee for nearly twenty years.
He's traveled the world by private jet, stayed in five
star hotels, and rubbed elbows with a host of celebrities,
sports stars, and world leaders. On this crisp Autumn night, Blazer,
(02:31):
with a head of hair and beard as bushy and
white as Santa Clauss, is making his way to Uncle Jack's,
a posh New York steakhouse on the West Side. He's
joined by friends, including the woman he's dating the former
soap opera actress Marylynn Blanks. Because of his weight, which
has balloon to more than four hundred pounds, he relies
(02:54):
on a mobility scooter for assistants. Like many FIFA executives,
Blazers now in restaurants around the world for spending thousands
of dollars on food, alcohol, and pretty much whatever the
hell he wanted. In New York, Blazer was known as
much for his love of strip clubs as he was
for his love of Max, his blue and gold pet parrot.
(03:17):
Max was regularly seen around town sitting on Blazer's shoulder.
On this fateful night, Max the parrot was left upstairs
in one of Blazers too yes to luxury Trump Tower apartments. Combined,
they cost nearly two thousand dollars a month. One of
(03:37):
the apartments was just for his cats, who apparently paid
a lot, and so we're rewarded with a residence of
their own. You might be wondering, like I did, how
this morbidly obese, clearly eccentric American sports marketing executive from Queens,
New York ended up on soccer's international governing council. You
(03:59):
might also asked, how can he afford such luxuries like
two penthouse apartments in downtown Manhattan. The federal agents, one
from the Internal Revenue Service and the other from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, have been wondering the same thing.
They were waiting for Blazer in the atrium of Trump
Tower that very night. Looking every bit the part of
(04:23):
Gemen and their conservative business suits, they approached the surprise
Blazer as he and his friends were leaving the building
through its obnoxious gold awning entrance on East fifty six Street.
Steve Berryman of the i r S and Jared Randall
of the FBI introduced themselves. They told Blazer they were
(04:43):
investigating corruption in international soccer and especially at FIFA. Blazer froze,
his face turned white. They informed them the I r
S couldn't find any records of him paying US taxes
for years now. Meeting outside of the glitsee Trump Tower
(05:05):
would have been an awkward place to cry poverty, and anyways,
Blazer was too proud of his extravagant life that he
had built to pretend it didn't exist. Blazer always knew
this day might come. He was always really fundamentally insecure.
That's Mary Pappenfuss. She co wrote the book about Blazer
(05:26):
called American Huckster. How Chuck Blazer got rich from and
sold out the most powerful cabal in world sports. And
he told mary Lynn that he was afraid people are
going to finally find out who he was. And she said,
who's that? And he said, just a fat crook from Queens.
And I think that was his self image. He was
a fat crook from Queens. He's gonna grab whatever he
(05:49):
could when he could just gonna, you know, go to
the wall and maybe die before anyone caught him. Berryman
handed Blazer a white legal document. The subpoena ordered him
to turn over all of his financial records. Blazer was
facing at least thirty years in jail just for tax
evasion and more many more. If the rumors of fraud,
(06:12):
money laundering, racketeering that swirled around his time at FIFA
we're true. That's why the FBI was there. But Randall
and the FBI worn't after just Blazer. They had much
bigger designs. So they made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
(06:33):
It was maybe a thirty forty minute meeting and they said,
we can arrest you right now or you can wear
a wire, And he said, I'll wear a wire. In
a heartbeat, FIFA's extraordinary greed was about to catch up
with them. Blazer was just a vulnerable link in a
corrupt chain, a pressure point the FBI and I r
(06:54):
s could use to expose the wider fraud they had
suspected for years. For decades, the rules of the game
had been rigged by FIFA. For FIFA, maybe it was inevitable,
given the organization's history of playing footsie with murderous dictators
and shady oligarchs. So let me take you back to
the beginning of two thousand and eleven when it all
(07:17):
really began to unravel for Blazer and ultimately for FIFA itself.
It started when Blazer's longtime soccer partner, Jack Warner, was
caught with envelopes full of cash trying to buy FIFA's
presidential election. But before we go too deep into our story,
let me first explain what FIFA is besides the letters
(07:38):
you see printed on official soccer balls. The Federation International
Day Football Association was founded in in Paris. It runs
international soccer, the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, and
a host of other smaller tournaments. Collectively, these games are
watched by more than four billion people. That's more than
(08:03):
half the planet. No surprise, then, that FIFA pulls in
billions of dollars each year, and by these measures it's
been a great success. FIFA is also an epic failure,
a testament to greed. There's long been talk of widespread corruption,
a rot at the highest levels of the organization. In
(08:25):
two thousand and fifteen, two other organizations with acronyms you
already know, the FBI and the i r S, arrested
more than a dozen former in current FIFA members on
charges of bribery, fraud, and money laundry. These arrests, many
of which can be traced back to that chilly fall
(08:46):
meeting with Blazer, rip back the curtain of institutional rot
and dirty dealings of an organization operating completely out of bounds.
(09:09):
Even over the noise of the TV, Marylynn Blanks could
hear the anger and her boyfriend, Chuck Blazer's voice as
he talked on the phone with a soccer official from
the Bahamas. Blazer's TV was always on and always loud.
It was a lot like Blazer himself, so when he
threw his phone across the penthouse bedroom. Blanks knew whatever
(09:33):
was wrong must be bad, and it was. You see,
before he agreed to be a snitch for the US government,
Blazer was a reluctant whistleblower. I mean, don't get me wrong.
You wouldn't confuse him with some do good or anti
corruption advocate. Blazer was just a crooked stuck in a
(09:55):
tug of war between two other crooks. And to understand
on how all of this fits together and why Blazer
threw his phone across his bedroom, you need to hear
about an email Blazer received a couple of weeks before
from his longtime boss, Jack Warner, a FIFA Vice president
and the head of conker CALF, the Confederation of North
(10:18):
Central America and Caribbean Association Football, one of FIFA's six
regional confederations. Blazer and Warner had been partners and allies
in world soccer since Warner was first elected the head
of Conker CALF. They had built a successful, lucrative relationship
despite being polar opposites. They seem like Mutton Jeff, really
(10:42):
very very different from completely different worlds, but for some
reason they hit it off. Blazer was this physically imposing, gregarious,
Jewish marketing executive from Queens. He made his living traveling
from sales convention to sales convention, selling you know, pretty
much anything he could. He was also a suburban soccer dad,
(11:06):
and that's when he spotted a trend that changed the
course of his life. Says Mary papin Puss. He knew
nothing about soccer, but what he did notice was that
all of these kids were playing soccer, and all of
these parents were into soccer, and he thought, this is
the future of sports. Through a combination of charisma and
(11:26):
force of will, he rose through the ranks of international soccer.
Along the way, he forged new and very profitable sponsorships
and TV marketing deals in the US and around the world.
Warner was every bit the soccer fanatic that Blazer wasn't.
He was also wired, thin, brash, a black man raised
(11:49):
Catholic who taught history on the tiny island nation of
Trinidad and Tobago. He was known most for making things
happen for himself and his friends. He's journalist Grant Wall,
who has covered international soccer for more than twenty years,
describing Warner, he was always a pretty clever, kg guy,
(12:09):
for Jack Warner, it was always about getting the best
deal for himself. Two took over the poor and historically
weak soccer federation Conker Calf. Together they built it into
a massive soccer marketing empire. In the late eighties, he
teamed up with Jack Warner, who was the president of
the Trendad and Tobago Federation, a guy who understood politics,
(12:34):
and they decided that Jack Warner would run for president
of Conkacalf, Chuck Blazer would run as general secretary, and
that they would get all the votes in the Caribbean
because Jack Warner was involved. They worked together for a
really long time, with Warner's president and Blazer's general secretary.
(12:56):
The money started rolling in. With this ring of sponsorships
and TV agreements. The duo turned the once backwater soccer
association into a revenue generating powerhouse for FIFA. These guys
were getting rich. Here's Blazer bragging about his accomplishments. Is
(13:16):
doing a really excellent job of promoting football around the world.
If I look back ten years, twenty years and see
the progress we made, I'm very proud of our accomplishments.
In the shady world of FIFA. The pair with sticky
fingers fit right in. Blazer became known as Mr ten
percent because of a contract that entitled him to a
(13:37):
ten percent commission on all of Conky Caps marketing deals
and Warner. He had long been suspected of fixing matches,
selling World Cup tickets on the black market, and even worse,
seeking gifts in return for supporting World Cup bids. Their
partnership made them fabulously wealthy, propelling them up the ranks
(13:59):
of interne national soccers ruling elite, and landed them spots
on FIFA's all powerful Executive Committee. It also earned them
the trust of President set Bladder, who led FIFA from
until two thousand and fifteen. By trust, I mean no
one got on FIFA's executive committee without bladders full support.
(14:22):
The ultimate sporting power broker, the most powerful man in
world football, Bladder, he's the mayor of World Soccer. FIFA
is his baby. He's treated as a head of state,
and he flies in private planes, and he's given great
difference around the world. Part politician and it seems to
me part mafia boss. Bladder ruled international soccer with an
(14:43):
iron fist, just like in the mafia. If you earn
for the family. The family provides for you. Warner and
Blazer owed their wealth and status to the empire. Bladder ruled.
So back to that email Warner's sent to Blazer on
(15:03):
April first, two thousand and eleven, Warner was about to
risk all of their success and possibly fortunes on a
foolish scheme. When the email first arrived, Blazer was furious
he couldn't believe what he was reading. Warner wrote in
the email that he had decided to support set Bladder's
(15:25):
challenger in the upcoming two thousand and eleven FIFA presidential election.
Jack Warner was backing Mohammad been Hammam, a long time
FIFA official and president of the Asian Soccer Federation. The
battle for the presidency has been likened to a civil
war within the organization. The then sixty two year old
(15:45):
from the oil rich nation of Qatar stood little chance
of unseating Bladder on his own, but Qatar had already
shocked the sports world once before. Do we know to
organize the two twenty to FIFA vote? Cup is Ka
That's right, just a few months before, in December of
(16:08):
two thousand and ten, the small desert nation of just
over a million and a half people was awarded the
World Cup. It lacked modern FIFA style stadiums and had
no soccer pedigree whatsoever. What Qatar did have was money,
lots of oil and gas money and a desire to
be a player on the world stage, and so too
(16:32):
did Mohammed ben Hamm, who orchestrated Qatar's World Cup winning
bid over countries like Australia, Japan, and the United States. Still,
Jack Warner's plan to back ben Hamm seemed needlessly reckless
the Blazer. As part of his scheme, Warner had invited
(16:52):
bin Hamm to Trinidad and Tobago's capital, port of Spain,
to meet with about twenty five of the Caribbean's most
important soccer bosses who would vote in the upcoming FIFA election. Together,
they could swing the vote against Bladder and in favor
of ben Hamm. In the shadowy back rooms of FIFA dealmaking.
(17:13):
That meant money, lots of money in the pockets of
soccer officials who would choose the next FIFA president. After
reading the email, a panic Blazer immediately fired off a
sarcastic response to Warner. Journalist Mary pap and Fuss saw
the email. I think this first line was I hope
(17:34):
this is an April Fool's joke, but actually was April
Fool's Day. The Warner's plan was anything but a joke.
Chuck heard about it and he was just panicky, and
he told him, we can do this more discreetly, in
a better way. He said, please, don't do this. Weeks later,
(17:56):
when Jack Warner in the Caribbean Soccer Bosses met in
Port of Spain, he barreled ahead with his plan. Warner's
lack of discretion was on full display when he told
out one million dollars on behalf of ben Hamm and
small brown paper envelopes. And that's what Blazer had learned
(18:17):
in the call that made him so angry that he
threw his phone across the room. They passed out forty
thousand dollar bribes in cash to twenty five members of
the Caribbean Football Union. One of the officials from the Bahamas,
who was in the room with Warner, had called Blazer
to tell them about the bribes. What no one knew
(18:40):
at the time but we know now was part of
the two day meeting in Port of Spain was filmed.
The audio it isn't great, But if you could see
the grainy video, you'd see a nondescriptive conference room in
Trinidad's High Regency Hotel with about two dozen and Caribbean
(19:00):
soccer officials sitting behind long rows of tables, each one
with a small bottle of water and a clear drinking
glass at their side. We do have the audio. You
can hear Jack Warner on tape brazenly urging his fellow
Caribbean soccer officials to accept the quote gift for Mohammed
bin Hammams. You want to use it. And if you
(19:28):
ever wondered what it might sound like if ethics and
integrity were blatantly mocked in the act of bribery, well
Warner happily provided a script telling anyone who considered returning
the money because of ethical concerns to go open to church.
I know that us get some people here who believe
(19:50):
the modo. If you churchmen, if you're pious, open to
church friends. No one would accuse Blazer of being pious,
And yet he was beside himself after hearing about the
bribes and the envelope stuffed with cash. His longtime partner
in crime had crossed soccer's godfather, the most powerful man
(20:14):
in world sport, Sep Bladder, Chuck Blazer, and Jack Warner
were now on opposite sides of the battle for control
of FIFA. Here again, Mary pappenfuss I think if it
had been done more discreetly, with more sophistication, and Sep
Ladder would have been lost. The position Chuck wouldn't have cared.
(20:35):
It was just it couldn't have been contained because there
were whistleblowers calling people up. So he knew he had
to come out fast on the right side. That was,
you know, the red line. Chuck had to turn Jack
in or go down in flames with him. Anxious, angry, afraid,
Blazer knew he had no choice but to report Warner
(20:58):
to FIFA's leadership. Still, he hesitated for a few days,
knowing full well that his longtime friend could be vindictive
and that Warner knew all of Blazer's personal secrets, secrets
that could in Blazer's FIFA career or even worse, Landaman prisons.
(21:18):
A frantic Blazer made a call to FIFA's Secretary General
Jerome Valk, the one man many thought could be taught
football chiefs set Blatter withdraws. Mohammed bin Hammam of Kata
says he won't stand for FIFA president. It's a last
minute decision taken just before he was due to answer
claims of corruption, and soccer's ruling bosses immediately opened an
(21:40):
ethics investigation. The FIFA scandal rumbles on. Within days, Warner
and bin Hammam were out banned from the sport. Football's
governing body is trying to tackle its shading inner workings
by suspending two executives on corruption charges. Bladder would easily
be reelected for a fourth term as FIFA's president, and
(22:03):
then he casually brushed aside the entire scandal that was
steering his sport right in the face. Here's set Bladder crisis.
What is a crisis? If somebody, if you would describe
to me what there is a crisis, then I would
answer football is not in the crisis. Blazer was hailed
(22:25):
as a hero and went before the camera as the
clean face of an organization long suspected of corruption. Um,
what can be tons playing up? Pay for what I did?
And I just to turn around and do it, expose
it where it exists. The journalist grand Wall notes the irony.
For a while, it was hilarious check Blazer was being
(22:46):
called a whistleblower when Chuck Blazer had been just as
corrupt as Jack Warner hands in hand for decades. From
the outside the chet holy Field Federal Building in Orange County, California,
(23:09):
I couldn't look more out of place. With its steep
triangular walls, it looks more like an ancient Mesopotamian temple
than the US government building. Inside, however, with its endless
bright fluorescent lights, white tile floors, and rows of cubicles,
it looks and feels like what it is. The regional
(23:31):
offices of the Internal Revenue Service in August of two
thousand and eleven, just a few months after Warner tried
to bribe those Caribbean soccer officials, Assistant Special Agent in
charge Amy shaw Billion was at her desk when she
was forwarded a news article from one of her senior agents,
Steve Berryman. You'll remember Berryman as one of the two
(23:55):
federal agents who stopped Blazer outside of Trump Tower on
that Chris November night in two thousand and eleven. Berriman
rushed into Chabillion's office to show her a news article
with the headline FBI examines US soccer bosses financial records.
The British investigative journals Andrew Jennings detailed five hundred thousand
(24:19):
dollars worth of suspicious payments made to Blazer from dodgy
Caribbean soccer officials. The British public were irate with FIFA
after losing out on the two thousand and eighteen World
Cup to Russia. Britain's press were sniffing around for stories
about FIFA corruption, confident that Russia and Qatar bribed FIFA
(24:42):
officials to win their World Cup bids. At the time,
Blazer was still flying high as the whistleblower on FIFA corruption.
Is faith for inherently corrupt. I think individuals are for
a long time followers of global sport, like Andrew Jennings,
Blazer's act was an ironic twist of events. Jennings had
(25:06):
spent the better part of the previous two decades chronicling
FIFA's shady inner workings, and had written several books about
FIFA's corruption. Jennings knew Blazer's hands were dirty. When questioned
by Jennings and other journalists, Blazer didn't deny receiving the
offshore payments, he insisted, though all the transactions were done legally.
(25:29):
Jennings new Blazer's explanation of the payments didn't add up.
Blazers carefully constructed house of cards was beginning to collapse,
not only for him but also for FIFA, and after
seeing the news that Jennings broke, Berryman, a lifelong soccer fan,
(25:49):
thought it best to look more closely at Blazer's claims.
He looked into the tax filing and discovered it there
was a really good potential for a tax case. That's
Amy Sabillian, Berryman's boss. We didn't see any open bank
accounts even in his name. From my perspective, I saw
(26:09):
somebody that was living pretty high living here in the
United States, clearly making income and not filing despite the
appearance of overflowing wealth. Remember the two Trump Tower apartments.
Blazer hadn't filed US taxes in years. Mary pap Infest
told me there's an easy explanation. Blazer's money was in
(26:33):
fact FIFA's money. He didn't spend a penny of his
own money. Conker Calf, the local FIFA organization, paid his
rent every time he went out to dinner. Everything he
ate was paid for. If the FBI was sniffing around FIFA,
as media reports suggested, and Steve Berryman had just discovered
(26:55):
a sure fire way to get inside a FIFA's inner circle,
Chuck Lazier Chabillion's office reached out to the FBI to
offer its help. The team presented it to them to
see if they were interested in inviting us into their case. Again.
The Department of Justice and the FBI have been tracking
(27:16):
FIFA's corruption for years. It's dodgy TV deals, the payments
of crooked officials in World Cup vote buying, but federal
investigators had made surprisingly little progress in their case against
the secretive international organization based in Zurich, Switzerland, a country
famous for its secretive banking system. What Berryman had uncovered
(27:39):
and was now offering the FBI was what law enforcement
agencies throughout history have needed to crack any large scale
corruption conspiracy. An inside man. Chabillion only realized later how
important the Blazer break had been. I really did not
(28:01):
understand the gravity of that connection with FIFA. There were
members of the team that we're thinking this is huge.
I remember thinking, uh, yeah, all right, you know, tax
case sounds awesome. You know, that's what I want my
agents to be working. And if it became something bigger
than all, all the better. What started as an I
(28:26):
r S investigation into an eccentric and colorful sports executive
turned into one of the largest international corruption cases in
history and would lead to dozens of FIFA officials being
charged with fraud, corruption, and money laundering. The investigation would
wipe out most of FIFA's entrenched senior leadership and exposed
(28:49):
the dark underbelly of world soccer. Butbi rate is only
the start of our story. Actually, it's more like the
middle of our story. FIFA's corruption and depravity run deeper
than money laundering and bribery. Since the nineteen fifties, FIFA's
leaders have been accused of enabling dictators and turning a
(29:12):
blind eye to gross human rights violations. Its history is
one built on colonialism and inherent racism, and maybe it's
no wonder that history led to an organization some say
looks more like the mafia than a modern sports empire.
Its top executives are accused of using the organization's vast
(29:32):
wealth to buy influence, line their pockets and remain in power.
Coming up on Episode two, A corrupt kingdom that took
decades to build comes crashing down as the Lords of
Soccer get a rude awakening from the U. S. Department
of Justice. The Lords of Soccer, How FIFA Stole the
(29:59):
Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices Media production in conjunction
with I Heart Radio. The series was written and executive
produced by Gary Scott and me Connor Powell. Logan Heftell
and Katie mcmurran provided the sound design with assistance from j. C.
Swaddick and Jake blue Note. Alec Cowen is our associate
(30:20):
producer and Jeffrey Katz was our story editor. Our fact
checker is Alexa O'Brien and thanks to Miles Gray, who
produced the series for I Heart Radio. If you have
any comments or questions, please reach out. You can find
us on Twitter. I'm at Connor m Powell and Gary
is at Gary Robert Scott and if you have any
(30:42):
stories about FIFA, let us know. If you like what
you hear, please give us a shout out at the
hashtag Lords of Soccer
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