Red Card

by Ken Bensinger

  “This,” Valcke kept saying, “is the end of FIFA.”

  * * *

  The FBI’s New York field office occupies seven floors of 26 Federal Plaza, a heavily guarded federal office tower in downtown Manhattan sandwiched between Chinatown and City Hall. It is the FBI’s largest field office; with roughly 1,200 agents, it’s about twice the size of the Los Angeles office, and that’s not counting the roughly five hundred New York Police Department officers assigned to FBI task forces in the building.

  Sitting in his cubicle on the twenty-third floor the morning after the vote, December 3, special agent Jared Randall lazily flipped through a copy of The New York Times, scanning the day’s news.

  The paper of record had not bothered to dispatch a reporter to Zurich to cover FIFA’s vote. The three articles it did carry on FIFA were buried deep inside, starting on page B11 under the headline “Russia and Qatar Expand Soccer’s Global Footprint.”

  The Times’s muted reaction fell in line with that of the American public as a whole, which—save for dedicated soccer fans—seemed profoundly uninterested. Even President Obama appeared to take the news in stride, calling the vote “the wrong decision,” but confidently predicting that the U.S. national team would play well no matter where the World Cup was held.

  Randall, however, found the articles riveting. He got up and rushed into Mike Gaeta’s office, just a few yards from his desk. Lean and athletic with intense dark eyes, Randall was one of the youngest agents in the New York field office.

  Like a lot of FBI agents, his father was a cop—in Narragansett, Rhode Island, where Randall grew up—but he’d shown little interest in law enforcement as a kid. In high school, he’d started a web design business, and he’d majored in computer information systems in college.

  He considered the FBI only after a recruiter visited campus during his senior year, noting that the Bureau was looking for agents to fight cyber crime. That seemed exciting, and Randall applied at twenty-five, the minimum age allowed.

  He was assigned to the New York field office straight out of the academy, but never spent a day on cyber crime. After a few training rotations and a short stint in asset forfeiture, a complex and technical area, Randall was transferred in early 2010 to the Eurasian crime squad, C-24.

  Gaeta was happy to take him. His new squad was pretty thin, and besides, he loved working with young agents. They didn’t have any bad habits that needed breaking, soaked up his advice like sponges, and didn’t challenge his theories about cases.

  With as many as twenty investigations going at once, there was no way Gaeta could do everything. But by relying on motivated young agents to sit in surveillance, listen to wires, keep track of cooperators, and take care of a million other details, he figured he could operate as what he called a “senior case agent,” running everything at once.

  One of those things was the soccer investigation.

  Gaeta had returned from multiple meetings with Christopher Steele convinced there was a case to be made involving FIFA, but he wasn’t sure what. It seemed a bit amorphous and hazy, but lots of great cases started that way. Gaeta called Evan Norris, a prosecutor he knew in the Eastern District of New York, the federal district covering Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. He’d worked with Norris before and believed he was the right man for what seemed a juicy case. Norris didn’t hesitate. The FIFA Case was now officially open.

  The only thing missing was someone to run the investigation on a daily basis, and looking over his roster of agents, Jared Randall jumped to mind. He’d had only one or two cases before, and they hadn’t gone anywhere. But with Gaeta’s more experienced agents tied up on other matters, there just weren’t too many other bodies available.

  Besides, Randall had been a scholarship soccer player at Manhattan College and actively played on the NYPD soccer team. That alone, Gaeta figured, made Randall the most qualified guy on the squad.

  Now, sitting in his cramped interior office, Gaeta took the newspaper out of Randall’s hand and scanned the news story.

  “Russia got the World Cup,” Randall said.

  “Yeah,” Gaeta shrugged, unsurprised.

  The veteran agent paused to look out of his office across the dozens of dingy cubicles that constituted the field office’s various organized crime squads. Trophies of successful takedowns were scattered here and there, mixed in with reams of paper, boxes of evidence, bulletproof vests, riot gear, and FBI windbreakers hanging over backs of chairs. Clean-cut agents, nursing cups of coffee, chatted quietly, bullshitting before getting down to the day’s work.

  The disheveled tableau seemed appropriate for busting two-bit thugs controlling petty crime in the city’s outer boroughs, yet far removed from the opulent, pristine meeting rooms in FIFA’s aerie high above Zurich. Still, Gaeta was an ambitious agent and loved the idea of bringing down the seemingly untouchable mandarins who controlled all of soccer as they ate canapés and quaffed fine champagne.

  “Imagine,” he said to Randall, “if we could get all the way up to that level.”

  SIX

  * * *

  JACK VS. CHUCK

  “JACK,” CHUCK BLAZER BEGAN TO type on his computer. “I hope this is an April Fool’s Joke.”

  Over the more than twenty-five years he’d known the man, Chuck Blazer had seen Jack Warner pull more than his share of outrageous stunts, such as the time in 2003 when he sabotaged a gala dinner for 1,200 celebrating the opening of a new soccer stadium in Carson, California, by launching into a racially charged tirade because he wasn’t picked up from the airport in a limo.

  Or when Warner insisted Trinidad host the U-17 World Championships, awarded himself, friends, and family nearly every concession and contract, and then almost failed to pull it off. Or the moment, in 2010, after the Russian World Cup bid team made a presentation to CONCACAF’s leadership, and Warner turned to them and archly said, to the shock of everyone in the room, “What’s in it for us?”

  Now, sitting in his apartment high in Trump Tower, early on April 1, 2011, it seemed to Blazer that his irascible old friend was on the verge of another bizarre performance. Warner had been, as was his habit, up before dawn, and his email had popped into Blazer’s inbox before six a.m., long before he woke up.

  Fellow ExCo member Mohamed bin Hammam had emailed Warner a few minutes earlier, expressing his desire to address the confederation’s membership directly at a “special congress” sometime around April 18, less than two weeks before CONCACAF’s already scheduled annual congress in Miami at the beginning of May. The billionaire, after more than a dozen years of loyal service to Blatter, had recently announced his intentions to run against him for the FIFA presidency. Beyond his wealth, he was the president of the Asian Football Confederation, and had played a key role in Qatar’s winning bid to host the tournament in 2022, making him a national hero and emboldening him, perhaps, to challenge the most powerful man in soccer.

  After so many years at Blatter’s side, he was familiar with the many tactics the Swiss employed to maintain his position. Bin Hammam wanted the opportunity to solicit all thirty-five CONCACAF votes alone and in person ahead of the presidential election in Zurich on June 1.

  Warner immediately responded by saying he would “do my utmost to assist you by hosting such a meeting” in Trinidad, then forwarded the message to his general secretary, instructing him to “make this happen.”

  Blazer could scarcely contain his fury upon reading the email. He drafted a strongly worded reply, but before sending it first ran the email by a trusted colleague. Finally, at 9:43 a.m. New York time, he responded.

  “I regret the need to address this issue after the fact and that you didn’t see fit to talk with me prior to your response to Mohamed,” he wrote. “Mohamed’s request, while convenient for him, is really quite impossible for us.”

  For starters, CONCACAF’s staff in New York and Miami were racing to prepare the Gold Cup competition starting in June even as they were organizing the congress in Miami
. A youth World Cup qualifying tournament was being played in Guatemala at that very moment, tying up additional confederation resources, and the marketing team had an event planned for Mexico City on the same days Bin Hammam had proposed.

  But even more troubling than the migraine-inducing logistics of fulfilling such a request at such a late hour were Warner’s motives for asking in the first place.

  The office of the president of FIFA enjoyed a status closer to that of a monarch or autocrat than a democratically elected figurehead, and the exalted man’s every whim was taken as a command to put into action. Leaders of nations, public intellectuals, and celebrities wanted to be around the president, took his ideas seriously, and showered him with praise. The Swiss authorities, meanwhile, tended to take a hands-off approach to regulating the organization he controlled, charging it a fraction of the taxes paid by for-profit ventures and giving it freedom to do as it pleased.

  Forfeiting all that would be devastating. After overcoming the ISL crisis to win in 2002, Blatter had run unopposed in 2007, and made it clear he had every intention to hold on to the vaunted position for many years to come.

  Blazer and Warner had built their careers at FIFA around allegiance to Blatter, vehemently and tirelessly defending him amid numerous public crises, and routinely delivering all thirty-five of their confederation’s votes as tribute.

  In exchange, Blatter had offered magnanimity, lavishing FIFA funds earmarked for soccer development on pet projects of theirs, such as a $3 million television studio in CONCACAF’s Trump Tower offices that Blazer had coveted, or the vast majority of the $26 million spent to pay for a sprawling sports, entertainment, and hotel complex Warner built in Trinidad. Blazer’s daughter, a lawyer, had for several years been given a seat on FIFA’s Legal Committee, while Warner’s younger son, Daryll, currently worked as a FIFA development officer in the Caribbean, helping dole out more of the organization’s largesse.

  When Cameroon soccer official Issa Hayatou had run against Blatter for FIFA president in 2002, he, too, had asked to address CONCACAF’s membership. But Warner, in a bold and cunning display of loyalty, made the unprecedented ruling that only a sitting FIFA president could address the formal CONCACAF congress, effectively shutting out Blatter’s rival.

  Allowing Bin Hammam to speak in Miami would not only fly in the face of that decision, but also risk alienating Warner and Blazer from their Swiss benefactor, who was known for eliminating those who did not support him.

  Then again, thought Blazer, this wasn’t entirely out of character for Warner. In the cutthroat world of FIFA politics, he had never been an easy man to get along with. After more than a quarter century on the ExCo, Warner was prideful, vindictive, and easily provoked, coiled like a cobra ready to strike. Though he worked constantly, his administrative skills left much to be desired, and Blazer and his staff pulled most of the weight when it came to the actual work of running the confederation.

  Worse still was Warner’s insatiable greed. Even Blazer, who was certainly adept at using his office for personal gain, was startled at how nakedly his friend pursued money, and how many times he’d escaped seeming disaster unscathed.

  “Jack Warner thinks that he can go through anything,” Blazer once wrote.

  The cagey old Warner had survived so long because of his innate feel for politics. He instinctively understood the rough business of securing votes, shoring up alliances, and punishing dissent. For decades, the key to his power had been the way he lorded over the Caribbean, his little fiefdom, and now Blazer feared his sly old comrade was losing his edge.

  Bin Hammam was well liked in the FIFA crowd, sure, and deeply generous in his own right. With Qatar’s fortunes on the rise, he was a good friend to have. But aiding Bin Hammam’s campaign was tantamount to a betrayal. Atop the FIFA pyramid, one was either with Blatter or against him.

  “Please,” Blazer begged of Warner in his email, “do not destroy the work that needs to be done by rushing into decisions which cause problems for us.”

  * * *

  If it hadn’t been for Blazer, Warner would have never been in such a lofty position in the first place.

  The two had met at a CONCACAF congress in Tobago barely a month after the New Yorker was elected vice president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, and they had immediately hit it off, despite never working directly together.

  Then, on November 20, 1989, the bell rang at Warner’s house in Arouca, a suburb east of Port of Spain, just as he was taking his morning tea. At the door was a rather hopeful-looking Chuck Blazer. His unscheduled visit was particularly surprising considering the result of the previous day’s contest between the U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago at the National Stadium twenty-five miles away.

  During the 31st minute of the tightly contested match, American midfielder Paul Caligiuri had broken free, finding enough space to drill a long, arcing left-footed shot into the back of the net, breaking a scoreless tie. It was the day’s only goal, and became known in soccer circles as “the shot heard round the world” because it sent the United States national team to the World Cup for the first time in forty years. In the same stroke, Trinidad’s side, which had never qualified, was eliminated from contention.

  Now, sitting with Warner and his wife at their kitchen table, Blazer took a breath and made his big pitch. Warner, he said excitedly, should resign from Trinidad and Tobago’s soccer association and run for the CONCACAF presidency.

  The confederation’s sitting president, Mexican Joaquín Soria Terrazas, was gravely ill with diabetes and couldn’t possibly live out another four-year term, Blazer said. Under confederation statutes, the most senior CONCACAF vice president would take over should the president die or or be removed from office; that meant Gene Edwards, former president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, would get the job. And since the U.S. was scheduled to host the 1994 World Cup, Edwards would be a lock to keep the job when elections were held again on the eve of the world’s biggest sporting event.

  If Warner didn’t move now, Blazer explained, the presidency would be out of reach for years, if not forever. Blazer offered to work, for free, as campaign manager, but victory would depend on Warner’s ability to whip his colleagues in the Caribbean into line. Once they won, Blazer added, he would be more than glad to handle the daily operations of the confederation as general secretary, leaving Warner free to maintain unity among the membership.

  Blazer had been out of work since the previous May, when he’d been fired as president of the Miami Sharks. He had a pile of unpaid bills waiting for him in Scarsdale, including multiple mortgages and car notes, not to mention a pending lawsuit from a neighbor he’d stiffed on a personal loan, and had discovered there were extremely few paying jobs of any sort in American soccer. This admittedly wild idea felt like the last best hope.

  “If you are to be the president of CONCACAF,” Blazer implored, “you would have to make yourself available for the next elections in a few months time or wait until 1998, which is far too long.”

  * * *

  Warner, born in January 1943 to a poor family in Trinidad’s southeast, was the third child of an alcoholic and frequently absent father and a stern, devoutly Catholic mother, who scraped together a living cleaning houses. His childhood home had no running water, like many in the rural area where virtually every family, including his own, was black.

  An above-average student and passionate, but poor soccer player, he’d gone on to get a teaching degree while also channeling his love of the sport into climbing the administrative ladder of Trinidad’s chaotic amateur leagues. For most of his life, his only salaried “job” was as a secondary school teacher in Port of Spain, and as he slowly lifted himself into the ranks of the nation’s middle classes, he managed to gain and hold power in soccer as well.

  Warner was elected secretary of Trinidad and Tobago’s soccer association in 1974, but his big break came on December 8, 1982, when soldiers came to the house of André Kamperveen in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, s
hot his dogs, smashed his phones, and dragged the fifty-eight-year-old away.

  Kamperveen, a former professional soccer player and successful businessman, had publicly criticized the tiny South American nation’s government, a repressive dictatorship. That night he was savagely beaten and then shot to death, along with fourteen other dissidents.

  Kamperveen had also been president of the Caribbean Football Union, an organization he had helped found five years earlier, which automatically entitled him to a seat on FIFA’s ExCo. In the wake of his death, Warner, who had been the CFU’s second-ranking official, took both vacant positions, instantly becoming one of the most powerful men in soccer.

  The Caribbean was by no means a hotbed for soccer talent. Only one team from the region had ever qualified for the World Cup and interest in the sport in most of the countries was so tepid as to be virtually nonexistent. Many national associations were penniless and their officials rarely traveled abroad, serving as little more than organizers of occasional amateur competitions. Some association presidents seemed completely oblivious to what CONCACAF or FIFA even did.

  But FIFA and its six regional confederations operated as a simple democracy, allocating one vote to each country, regardless of size or soccer prowess. Thus tiny Curaçao had the same voting power in CONCACAF as the United States. British territory Bermuda, with a national team that has never ranked higher than 58th worldwide, had exactly the same vote as Brazil, hundreds of times larger and winner of multiple World Cups.

  The CFU had been formed in 1978 as a way to give Caribbean nations a seat at the table in a confederation long dominated by Mexican and Central American interests. But what Blazer recognized in the Union was an unbeatable voting bloc that could dictate the direction of CONCACAF as a whole and, by extension, be a formidable force in FIFA as well.