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Chuck’s world of offshore bank accounts
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Blazer confirms that he employs his son Jason, 41, as Concacaf’s $7,000 a month medical officer but adds, ‘Your question about my son is completely inappropriate. I am a public person and recognize that harassment from people like yourself with agendas to sell books and papers and who have little regard for the truth, comes with the territory.’
Blazer’s daughter Marci has in the past been a member of Fifa’s legal committee.
In the past Blazer has staunchly defended Warner against documented allegations of industrial-scale World Cup tickets rackets as having ‘very little credibility’ and sounding ‘worse than it was.’
Blazer enjoys an elevated lifestyle with an apartment in Trump Tower, New York, above the Concacaf office, he is renovating a farmhouse in North Carolina and is said to own a waterfront apartment in Miami. He fills up his blog with pictures of himself in the company of the likes of Nelson Mandela, Hilary Clinton and New York sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer – and frequently eating at the world’s finest restaurants.
Testimony ‘fabricated’
During a FIFA marketing dispute in a Manhattan court five years ago the judge ruled that Blazer's testimony was ‘generally without credibility based on his attitude and demeanour and on his evasive answers on cross-examination.’ The judge added that some of his testimony was ‘fabricated.’
Nonetheless Blazer, Chairman of FIFA’s Media Committee, enjoys favourable reporting in the American media. He has been lauded as the ‘whistleblower’ who ejected Warner from FIFA. When Warner resigned he was automatically replaced by Concacaf vice-president Lisle Austin from Barbados – who immediately fired Blazer. In turn Blazer barred Austin from the Concacaf office in Trump Tower. Austin then won a judgement in court in the Bahamas where Concacaf is registered, confirming him as president. But FIFA stepped in and suspended Austin for breaking FIFA’s rule that members of their football family must never use the civil courts to settle disputes.
Last Tuesday Austin was suspended from all football activities for a year by FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee in Zurich, chaired by Blatter’s close associate, Swiss lawyer Marcel Matheir.
Zurich ‘show trial’
Austin said last week, ‘I have repeatedly asked for an independent forensic audit of Concacaf’s finances, but to no avail. My struggle is to bring transparency and democracy to regional football and indeed FIFA.’
Austin’s lawyer Barry Blum said after the hearing, ‘The FIFA proceeding was a show trial reminiscent of the former Soviet Union and the worst fascist regimes. FIFA is taking the position that it is above the law and that a person's fundamental rights to due process and natural justice are inferior to FIFA's interests of sweeping any criticism under the rug. FIFA really has to take that position because its conduct would never survive scrutiny by any competent court of law. There is simply too much corruption and cronyism.
‘It is laughable that FIFA enjoys a status as a not for profit sporting organization. It is actually a sinister business organization operated by robber barons with no regard for ethics or integrity; power is all that matters.’