FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee has banned the former executive committee member and CONCACAF General Secretary Chuck Blazer from any soccer-related activities for life.
In a statement on Thursday, FIFA’s ethics committee said that Blazer had “committed many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF.
“In his positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance, payment and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, bribes and kickbacks as well as other money-making schemes,” added the committee.
Blazer, who was a FIFA executive committee member from 1997 to 2013, had pleaded guilty in November 2013 to a 10-count charge including bribery, money laundering and tax evasion. The charges carried a maximum concurrent imprisonment term of 75 years, but Blazer agreed to become an informant for the FBI and US justice department in return for immunity from prosecution.
The plea bargain, which was unsealed in June, revealed that Blazer agreed to “provide truthful, complete and accurate information” to prosecutors and to “participate in undercover activities pursuant to the specific instructions of law enforcement agents.”
Blazer admitted receiving payments in a $10 million bribe scheme to support South Africa’s successful 2010 World Cup hosting bid. The plot linked Blazer and two other then-FIFA executive committee members in getting cash which South African officials asked FIFA to transfer through the governing body’s accounts in 2008.
In May, US prosecutors indicted several FIFA officials on charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering involving tens of millions of dollars over 24 years, followed by the resignation of FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
