The corrupt football official who turned “supergrass”
Charismatic, manipulative and Chuck Blazer
reportedly weighing almost 30 1945-2017
stone, Chuck Blazer “lived a life of extravagant excess”, said The Daily Telegraph. Blazer, who has died aged 72, rose to be one of the most powerful men in world football. In his heyday, he worked from an $18,000-per-month suite on the 49th floor of Trump Tower in New York, and kept a separate $6,000-per-month suite solely for his cats; he moved about on a mobility scooter with his pet macaw, Max, on his shoulder. Then, in 2013, Blazer was charged with bribery, money laundering and tax evasion. It later emerged that he was the “supergrass” upon whose testimony the FBI’S probe into corruption in Fifa, the international football federation, was based. Blazer never played football himself: he studied accounting at New York University, and had his first success producing yellow smiley face badges from his father-in-law’s factory in Queens. But Blazer’s son was a keen football player and, in 1976, despite his lack of expertise, he volunteered as a coach. For the next decade, he ran teams and soccer leagues, and honed his knowledge of the game. In 1984, he was elected vice-president of the US Soccer Federation, having somehow persuaded Pelé to campaign on his behalf. Almost single-handedly, he brought US soccer into the TV age. In 1990, the national team competed in the World Cup for the first time in 40 years, and in 1994 the tournament was held in the US for the first time ever.
In 1990, Blazer became general secretary of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf). Under the presidency of his close ally, Trinidad’s Jack Warner, he cut a deal to pay his own company 10% of all sponsorship and TV rights, earning some $15.3m in commissions between 1996 and 2011. Blazer and Warner allegedly also extended the deal to bribes, said The Guardian. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to ten counts of racketeering, money laundering, wire fraud and tax evasion, and cooperated with the FBI, detailing bribery and corruption at the top of world football: in Fifa’s leadership elections; in the awarding of World Cups; and in TV rights and sponsorship. Blazer, then already ill, was spared prison. Warner and others named by him still await trial.