Former FIFA Official Chuck Blazer Admitted in 2013 to Accepting Bribes

Charles ‘Chuck’ Blazer, the former general secretary of Concacaf, admitted to a Brooklyn, N.Y., judge in 2013 that he had accepted bribes in connection with World Cup hosting and broadcast rights for other tournaments, helping the U.S. case against FIFA, soccer’s governing body. (PHOTO CREDIT: Bernd Kammerer/Associated Press)

Former top FIFA official Charles “Chuck” Blazer admitted in 2013 to taking bribes in connection with selecting the World Cup hosts and broadcast rights for other soccer tournaments, helping to form the backbone of the U.S. criminal case filed last week against senior officials of the world’s top governing body for soccer.

“Beginning in or around 2004 and continuing through 2011, I and others on the FIFA executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with the selection of South Africa as the host nation for the 2010 World Cup,” Mr. Blazer told a U.S. judge in Brooklyn, according to a transcript of the November 2013 plea hearing which was unsealed on Wednesday.

Mr. Blazer said he had “agreed with other persons” in 1992 to facilitate bribes in connection with selecting the 1998 World Cup host, and for the broadcast rights for multiple Gold Cups between 1996 and 2003.

Prosecutors announced Mr. Blazer’s guilty plea to a host of corruption charges last week, but didn’t make the transcript of his plea hearing public until Wednesday.

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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, Aruna Viswanatha