A plea agreement unsealed by a federal judge on Monday showed that former U.S. football official Chuck Blazer was "providing information to federal prosecutors looking into corruption" in FIFA for nearly a year and a half while still a member of FIFA's ruling exec committee, according to Andrew Das of the N.Y. TIMES. Among
the details disclosed was that Blazer "secretly cooperated with
federal investigators for nearly two years before his guilty plea" -- starting as early as Dec. '11 -- and that he agreed to "provide
information and documents, to testify at trial upon request, and not to
reveal his cooperation." The plea agreement also confirmed that Blazer had "agreed to work undercover for prosecutors." In the plea agreement, Blazer agreed to pay back taxes on $11M in unreported income from '05-10, and to file tax returns
for '05-13. He was also ordered to forfeit more than $1.9M
that the government said was "related to kickback and bribery schemes
created to manipulate the voting for the hosts of the 1998 and 2010
World Cups;" the illegal sale of World Cup tickets for the 1994 and 2002
World Cups; and the sale of the media and marketing rights to several
CONCACAF Gold Cups, a regional championship in which the U.S.
national team took part. The information Blazer and others have provided is "believed to have helped lead to the arrests" of the football execs and sports marketing officials during the week of FIFA's annual congress in Zurich, "and the resulting scandal" has led FIFA President Sepp Blatter to announce that he will step down once a new president is chosen, "perhaps as early as December" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/15). In London, Jack de Menezes reported to "avoid serving a jail sentence," Blazer agreed to "provide truthful,
complete and accurate information" to U.S. prosecutors and "participate in
undercover activities pursuant to the specific instructions of law
enforcement agents." Blazer, the former CONCACAF general secretary, first began to give information to the
U.S. justice department in Dec. '11, and pleaded guilty in a secret
hearing in Brooklyn in Nov. '13 (INDEPENDENT, 6/16).
CONCACAF EXPOSED: REUTERS' David Adams reported CONCACAF "is at the center of the turmoil
engulfing FIFA" following U.S. prosecutors' indictment last month of nine current and former officials
and five business execs in a $150M corruption case. From the "tiny Caymans, a British
dependent territory, to the larger independent nations of Jamaica and
Trinidad, the scandal has left the region facing questions about whether
a culture of corruption is embedded in small island politics and
society." The abuse of football, "which has overtaken cricket and athletics
in popularity in the region, has become a symbol of that problem." University of the West Indies political scientist Tennyson Joseph said, "There
is a Jack Warner or two in every Caribbean parliament today." He noted that "poor public services in some islands had
opened the door to populist would-be Robin Hoods." The scandal "also risks damaging the
island economies by deterring U.S. and other foreign banks from dealing
with banks in the region" (REUTERS, 6/16).
VIETNAM SCANDAL: THANH NIEN NEWS reported two top officials of the Vietnam Football Federation have been accused by a subordinate of "taking bribes from him, only a few days after he was laid off in a major downsizing." Nguyen Van Chuong, the former director of VFF’s Young Football Players Training Center, was reportedly dismissed along with some other employees on June 1 under a lay-off plan. After that, Chuong revealed that VFF Chair Le Hung Dung and his deputy Tran Quoc Tuan had each taken $4,587 from him. Chuong said that "as soon as he heard about the lay-off plan, he asked to meet the two officials to offer them the bribes, but he still ended up being fired." Tuan gave him back the money, "saying he could not help." Meanwhile, Dung "denied taking any bribe" (THANH NIEN NEWS, 6/15).
