Chuck Blazer, the U.S. soccer representative to FIFA, owed approximately $10 million to the IRS, which gave the DOJ leverage to flip him as an informant against FIFA.
Where this was said
At 31:46 · chapter starts 30:08
If Chuck Blazer sounds like a fiction, the reporters insist he was very real. A man of extraordinary taste, he looked like Santa Claus, kept two apartments in Trump Tower — one for himself, one for his cats — and walked Manhattan with a parrot on his shoulder that he fed chicken. He had another problem: he owed approximately $10 million to the IRS. Rather than prosecute him, the DOJ made the classic prosecutorial move — they flipped him, turning Blazer into an informant to access the larger, more difficult question of FIFA's systemic corruption. What they gave him was a recording device hidden inside his keychain. At every subsequent FIFA meeting, Blazer would toss his keys on the table as he arrived, exactly as anyone else might put down a phone — and record everything. The recordings were, as Robinson puts it, quite damning: candid discussions of sweetheart deals, named officials receiving payments, the full network of FIFA corruption laid bare by people who behaved with mind-blowing impunity.
Chuck Blazer was the U.S. soccer representative to FIFA — a Santa Claus lookalike who kept two apartments in Trump Tower (one for his cats), walked Manhattan with a parrot on his shoulder, and owed $10 million to the IRS. The DOJ flipped him instead of prosecuting him.
Chuck Blazer, the U.S. FIFA representative turned DOJ informant, kept two apartments in Trump Tower — one for himself and one specifically for his cats.
Chuck Blazer walked into FIFA executive meetings and tossed his keys on the table — just like everyone else. Except his keychain was a secret FBI recording device. The recordings captured explicit discussions of sweetheart broadcast deals and named the officials receiving corrupt payments.
Joshua Robinson was at the Zurich hotel with his $8 coffee when Swiss police — empowered by the FBI and DOJ — walked FIFA executives out in handcuffs. The 47-count RICO indictment against 14 officials was the law originally designed for the mob being turned on global soccer.
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