World football governing body FIFA has banned former Executive Committee member and former CONCACAF General Secretary Chuck Blazer from all football-related activities for life.
Blazer, 70, had incurred FIFA’s wrath by working undercover with prosecutors in the U.S. after pleading guilty to charges of bribery, money laundering and tax evasion.
It would be recalled that several FIFA officials were arrested in May on charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering.
FIFA, in a statement, said Blazer “committed many and various acts of misconduct’’.
Overall, 14 people have been indicted, with the U.S. Justice Department alleging bribes and kickbacks estimated at more than 150 million dollars over a 24-year period.
Blazer was the second highest official in FIFA’s North and Central American and Caribbean region (CONCACAF) from 1990 to 2011.
He also served on FIFA’s Executive Committee between 1997 and 2013.
In a transcript from a 2013 U.S. hearing, the American had pleaded guilty to 10 charges.
Blazer admitted he and others on the executive committee of football’s world governing body agreed to accept bribes in connection with the choice of South Africa as 2010 World Cup hosts.
He said he also facilitated bribes over the 1998 event.
A document of his agreement with US prosecutors shows Blazer was secretly co-operating with them from December 2011.
A media report in 2014 had said Blazer had bugged meetings with FIFA executives at the London 2012 Olympics with a wire device concealed in a key fob.
FIFA had suspended its investigation into Blazer because of his “ill health” but reopened it in December 2014, leading to his life-long ban.
In its statement, FIFA added that the decision to ban Blazer was taken on the basis of investigations carried out by the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee.
This investigation was in response to the final report of the CONCACAF Integrity Committee and the latest facts presented by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
