Chuck Blazer, the former FIFA executive committee member has died.
Blazer, 72, was general secretary of the
Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association
Football (CONCACAF) from 1990 to 2011.
He pleaded guilty in the United States to bribery
and financial offences in 2013 and was later banned by FIFA from all
football activities for life.
A statement from Blazer’s two lawyers did not provide details or the circumstances of his death.
According to the transcript of his November 2013
guilty plea, Blazer and others in FIFA agreed to accept bribes in the
bidding process for the 1998 World Cup in France and the 2010 World Cup
in South Africa.
FIFA’s ethics committee said Blazer breached rules
on loyalty, confidentiality, duty of disclosure, conflicts of interest,
offering and accepting gifts, and bribery and corruption.
As part of the 2013 plea agreement, Blazer agreed
to cooperate with investigating authorities in the United States while
they investigated the FIFA corruption scandal, which eventually played a
crucial role in the departure of its former president, Sepp Blatter.
Blazer had accused another former CONCACAF
president, Jack Warner, of having pocketed funds from a $10 million
project to support the African diaspora in Caribbean countries at the
time of South Africa’s successful bid to stage the 2010 World Cup.
FIFA opened an ethics investigation over
bribes-for-votes allegations in the 2011 FIFA presidential election
after Blazer reported a possible case of bribery between Blatter and
then FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam.
Warner and Bin Hammam were also banned by FIFA for life.
FIFA was not immediately available for a comment on Blazer’s death. A
spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, which is
overseeing the FIFA probe, did not respond to a request for comment.
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