The U.S. investigation of corruption in soccer’s governing body is moving to a new phase that will bring criminal charges against more people.
How the case develops hinges in part on the fate of nine FIFA officials and five sports marketing executives charged in a racketeering and bribery indictment unsealed May 27, said Richard Weber, chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. The prosecution, which has garnered worldwide attention, came two days before FIFA re-elected its embattled president, Sepp Blatter, 79, for another four-year term
The IRS joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, in building a case alleging sports-marketing executives paid more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks over 24 years for media and marketing rights to soccer tournaments.
Prosecutors charged Jeffrey Webb and Jack Warner, the current and former presidents of soccer’s governing body for North America, Central America and the Caribbean, or Concacaf. They secured guilty pleas from Charles Blazer, 70, the group’s former general secretary; Jose Hawilla, a Brazilian sports marketing executive, who agreed to forfeit $151 million; and Warner’s two sons, Daryll and Daryan.
Blazer admitted he participated in several bribery schemes involving soccer tournaments, including the World Cups in 1998 and 2010, according to court records. He took a $750,000 cut of a $10 million bribe to support South Africa’s host bid for the 2010 World Cup, according to the criminal charges he admitted.
The IRS entered the case in 2011 when a Los Angeles-based agent, Steven Berryman, began a tax investigation of Blazer, Weber said. Blazer lived in a Trump Tower apartment, flew on private jets, dined at the world’s finest restaurants and hobnobbed with celebrities and world leaders.
His blog, “Travels with Chuck Blazer and his Friends,” featured pictures of Blazer with Hillary Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Prince William, among others. Blazer, now fighting cancer, drew the IRS into FIFA, Weber said. In late 2011, the IRS joined the FBI, which was separately probing FIFA.
Weber said that investigators traced financial records from 33 nations and obtained most of them through treaty requests.
HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered are studying transactions to ensure proper procedures took place.
“When you’re talking about a $150 million-plus racketeering and money-laundering case, where you have to trace the bribe and kickback case through multiple accounts and intermediaries and offshore corporations and official ownership, it’s a maze of documents and a significant jigsaw puzzle that has to be put together,” Weber said.
“When you’re dealing with so many countries and so many different players, it is reasonable to spend a few years on a case like this,” he said.
The case is U.S. v. Webb, 15-cr-00252, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
