American Huckster
How Chuck Blazer Got Rich From-and Sold Out-the Most Powerful Cabal in World Sports
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
The first inside account of the international soccer scandal that rocked the world and the American at its center—the incredible story of how a stay-at-home New York soccer dad illegally made millions off the world’s most powerful and corrupt sports organization and became an unlikely FBI whistleblower.
He was the middle-class Jewish kid from Queens who rose from local youth soccer leagues to the heights of FIFA, becoming a larger-than-life, jet-setting buccaneer—and the most notorious FBI informant in sports history. For years, Chuck Blazer skimmed over $20 million from FIFA, stashing his money in offshore accounts and real estate holdings that included a luxury apartment in Trump Tower, a South Beach condo, and a hideaway in the Bahamas. Instantly recognizable with his unruly mass of salt-and-pepper hair and matching beard—and a rotating crop of arm candy—Blazer was one of the most flamboyant figures in the glitzy social and political circles of international soccer. Over the course of thirty years, Blazer leveraged his friendships with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton and Nelson Mandela, to increase his influence with the mandarins of global soccer—most notably Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s long-time godfather.
Once Blatter tapped Blazer to be the first American in almost fifty years to sit on FIFA’s executive committee, the erstwhile accountant steadily accumulated money and power—until 2013 when the FBI and IRS nabbed Blazer and charged him with fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. In exchange for immunity, Blazer agreed to let the Feds install a microphone in his keychain to entrap his larcenous band of brothers—leading to the shocking arrest and indictment of eighteen FIFA officials for racketeering and bribery.
In this taut and suspenseful tale of white-collar crime and betrayal at the highest levels of international business, investigative reporters Mary Papenfuss and Teri Thompson draw on sources in U.S. law enforcement as well as in Blazer’s inner circle to tell the surreal tale of this astonishing character and the scandal that rocked the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With journalistic candor, Papenfuss and Thompson, former New York Daily News editors, still seem to have a love-hate relationship with Chuck Blazer, a scam artist who turned the massive profits of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) into his personal piggy bank. The writers methodically unearth Blazer's many schemes. He and his Caribbean sidekick, Jack Warner, were two jet-setters who were courted by world leaders and celebrities while pocketing over $20 million in bribes, kickbacks, and other graft from members of FIFA and CONCACAF, the regional soccer federation of the Americas. The authors also survey the brazen criminal activities of ousted FIFA president Sepp Blatter. The writers follow Blazer's 17-year rise to the top, with his charm and cunning, lavish lifestyle, and yen for strippers, before the FBI brokered a deal to bring down the FIFA hierarchy in 2011. This grim, always entertaining cautionary tale of greed and runaway ego is a worthy addition to any reader's collection of business fantasies gone awry.