Chuck Blazer
Eccentric 30-stone US football official who turned whistleblower and exposed widespread Fifa corruption
CHUCK BLAZER, who died last week aged 72, was an American football official and the whistleblower who exposed the corruption in Fifa that led to the resignation of its president Sepp Blatter in June 2015.
Blazer was a Fifa Executive Committee member from 1996 to 2011 and General Secretary of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) from 1990-2011. In 2013, however, he pleaded guilty to bribery, money laundering and tax evasion and it later transpired that he was the “supergrass” at the heart of investigations into fraud, money laundering and racketeering involving several members of the Fifa executive.
His decision to cooperate with the FBI had come after investigations into his own financial affairs (including accusations of years of tax evasion) forced his hand in 2011. He subsequently provided the authorities with access to his emails, telephone calls and offshore accounts, while continuing to work for Fifa.
Charismatic and manipulative, Blazer was said to weigh almost 30 stone and lived a life of extravagant excess but he was regarded by many as having helped to build the popularity of soccer in America and was a key player in the winning bid to stage the World Cup there in 1994.
When he joined CONCACAF he moved their offices to the Trump Tower, where they took up the entire 17th floor. Blazer worked from two apartments on the 49th floor in an $18,000-a-month suite of rooms for himself with an adjoining $6,000 apartment for his cats.
Even during his time as an informant he continued to keep up his somewhat bizarre blog; “Travels with Chuck Blazer And His Friends” described his meetings with Prince William and Vladimir Putin, encounters with beauty queens, celebrities, and politicians and photographic proof of his predilection for dressing up as Father Christmas and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars. Latterly, increasingly hampered by his weight and ill health, he drove around New York on a mobility scooter with his pet parrot on his shoulder.
On May 27, 2015, as a result of the FBI investigations, the US Department of Justice charged 14 officials, nine of whom were current or former Fifa executives. Blazer’s cooperation with the authorities brought him immunity from prosecution and spared him a 75-year prison sentence. In 2015 he was banned from all football-related activities for life.
Charles Gordon Blazer was born on April 26, 1945 in Queens, New York.
After studying accounting at New York University, he married his high school girlfriend, Susan Aufox.
In 1976 his son began to play youth soccer at Westchester County, NY, and Blazer started coaching the team. He was soon involved in the Eastern New York State Soccer Association, then the US Soccer Federation. In the mid-1980s Blazer began to sit on the board of CONCACAF, where he would meet Jack Warner.
In 1989 Blazer encouraged Warner to run for CONCACAF president and went on to manage his successful campaign. He was rewarded with the role of general secretary, which included an agreement to pay Blazer’s company a 10pc cut of sponsorship. It has been estimated that Blazer made $15.3m in commissions between 1996 and 2011.
In May 2011, in response to allegations of bribery made by national representatives of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), Blazer set up an investigation of AFC President Mohamed bin Hammam and FIFA Vice President Jack Warner. This subsequently led to Fifa’s suspension of Warner and Bin Hammam.
Blazer’s marriage ended in divorce in 1995. He is survived by a son and a daughter.