The court documents from the United States of America v. Charles Gordon Blazer were unsealed on Wednesday, allowing us to hear from Blazer himself. He plead guilty to multiple charges as part of a deal with the U.S. attorney and was forced to admit the following in court:
FIFA executive Chuck Blazer says he took bribes
Blazer says he accepted bribes he knew were unlawful to vote a certain way for the selection of the 1998 and 2010 World Cup hosts.
- Accepted a bribe in 1992 related to selecting the host nation for the 1998 World Cup
- Accepted bribes related to the granting of TV rights for the 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003 Gold Cups
- Accepted bribes from 2004 to 2011 to select South Africa as the 2010 World Cup host
- Actively attempted to conceal his receipt of bribes
What he was forced to admit about World Cup bribes tells us quite a bit. First, that FIFA’s corruption is not new, and that dumping Sepp Blatter isn’t going to fix much on its own, if Blazer was taking bribes in 1992. Second, that the scheme to grant South Africa the 2010 World Cup had more to do than a few kickbacks here and there. Blazer accepted multiple bribes over a period of eight years.
Just as interesting as what’s revealed here is what remained redacted. Conversations related to Blazer’s assets, his bail, and other conditions of his deal with the U.S. attorney have been omitted. It’ll be fun when those items are finally revealed.
SB Nation presents: Sepp Blatter was an awful...ly great FIFA chairman
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