Chuck Blazer, an outgoing member of the FIFA Executive Committee and former whistle-blower in a 2011 vote-fixing case, was suspended for 90 days on Monday by football’s world governing body after being accused of embezzling at least $21 million.
Blazer, a former secretary general at CONCACAF, is accused of embezzling the money by compensating himself with CONCACAF funds, without any authorization. Last month, CONCACAF, the governing body of North and Central American and Caribbean soccer, issued an Integrity Committee report accusing Blazer of enriching himself through the fraudulent activity. Blazer, 67, was also accused of using CONCACAF money to purchase several apartments, according to the report.
Blazer previously announced that he will give up his seat on the FIFA Executive Committee, when his term ends later this month. The former Executive Vice President of the U.S. Soccer Federation has been a member of the FIFA board for the past 16 years. Blazer resigned as secretary general of CONCACAF in December of 2011.
FIFA decided to ban Blazer “based on the fact that various breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics appear to have been committed by," the American soccer administrator, the organization wrote in a statement.
In May of 2011, Blazer served as the whistle-blower in a bribery scandal involving Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner, his former cohort at CONCACAF. An investigation launched by Blazer accused the duo of offering a $1 million bribe to the Caribbean Football Union in exchange for voting for Bin Hammam in the FIFA presidential election against incumbent Sepp Blatter. Warner, who became the president of CONCACAF in 1990, resigned from his post soon after.
Bin Hammam, the former head of the Asian confederation, withdrew his candidacy a day before a FIFA ethics committee meeting later that month, allowing Blatter to run unopposed. Months later, Bin Hammam was banned for life by the committee, a ruling that was later overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last July.
Last month’s report by CONCACAF detailed serious allegations of fraud against Blazer and Warner, amid a probe from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. The report documented Warner’s private ownership of a $25 million Centre of Excellence in Trindad, of which CONCACAF believed was its own, SI.com reported. The report also accused Blazer of embezzling $15 million in commissions as early as 1998, without any agreement with CONCACAF. A day earlier, Warner resigned from his post as Trinidad & Tobago's minister of national security.
Blazer, who previously denied the wrongdoing, has not commented on the ethics allegations.
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