... FIFA officials and businessmen close to the sport were charged under a racketeering law that allowed prosecutors to cover generations of wrongdoing, from bribery to money laundering, under one indictment. The ongoing U.S. probe has led to dozens of guilty pleas, two trial convictions and the forfeiture of hundreds of millions of dollars ...Red Card, a book that chronicles the U.S. investigation of corruption in soccer.
...a series of scandals began unfurling that revealed Fifa to be even more corrupt than many had realised. Most of the executive-committee (Exco) members who voted in Zurich have since been charged or accused by US authorities of criminal wrongdoing, or sanctioned by Fifa’s ethics committee ... in a curious coincidence, the FBI’s initial tipoff came from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who in 2016 warned the FBI about purported collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidency ... one of Bensinger’s best sources, and therefore a hero of this book — discovered that the US Exco member Chuck Blazer had not filed taxes for at least 17 years. The white-bearded Blazer was as greedy as he was obese.
Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal, by the BuzzFeed investigative reporter Ken Bensinger, delivers an engrossing and jaw-dropping tale of international intrigue culminating in dozens of individuals and companies associated with professional soccer being brought to justice.
Investigating and prosecuting corruption in the world’s most popular sport ... On May 27, 2015, after several years of slow, meticulous investigation on the part of a number of agencies, most notably the American FBI and IRS, Swiss police conducted sweeping arrests of large numbers of high-ranking functionaries gathered for elections for Zurich-based FIFA, world soccer’s governing body. Corruption across the sport has been endemic for decades, and in this fine, deeply researched, painstakingly assembled book, BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Bensinger shows how American agencies homed in on corruption within CONCACAF, the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean ... A forensic investigation of the depth of corruption within FIFA and its regional bodies that also shows how much work goes into high-level criminal investigations.
...Investigates the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into corruption at the highest levels of international soccer...The story begins with a 2011 Google alert received by Steve Berryman, an Internal Revenue Service special agent and zealous soccer fan, about high-ranking FIFA official Chuck Blazer—an American whose financial records were under examination by the FBI...With that tip, Berryman teamed with FBI agents to go after Blazer, who, facing significant federal charges, eventually became the government’s most helpful cooperator in the investigation ... Bensinger meticulously chronicles the magnitude of corruption that permeates the world’s most popular sport.
