FBI probing $500,000 payments from Caribbean Football Union to US official

WASHINGTON, USA — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is examining documents recording more than $500,000 in payments made by the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to a top US official of the sport that has already been shaken internationally by corruption allegations, Reuters news service reported.

According to Reuters, the FBI is examining evidence related to payments made to Chuck Blazer, US member of the executive committee of FIFA, the Zurich-based governing body of soccer.

Blazer is also general secretary of CONCACAF, the sport’s governing body in North and Central America and the Caribbean. He has recently sparked controversy by accusing two other top international soccer officials of corruption.

The probe is said to relate to documents whose existence was initially reported by Britain’s Independent newspaper last weekend and on the www.transparencyinsport.org website by British journalist Andrew Jennings, who specializes in investigating alleged corruption in international sports.

In an e-mail to Reuters, Blazer denounced Jennings’ story as “replete with errors” and said the journalist had a “clear agenda.”

But Blazer did not deny receiving three offshore payments, totaling more than $500,000. Instead, Blazer insisted that “all of my transactions have been conducted legally.”

According to the documents, reviewed by Reuters, three payments were made to offshore accounts maintained by Blazer over the last 15 years.

In a letter dated January 29, 1996, Jack Warner, president of the Caribbean Football Union, and until recently president of CONCACAF and vice president of FIFA, instructed the vice president of a bank to wire transfer $57,750 to an account at Barclays Bank in the Cayman Islands maintained by a company called Sportvertising Ltd.

A 1990 document, signed by both Blazer and Warner and reviewed by Reuters, identifies Blazer as “President” of Sportvertising Inc. The document, headed “retainer agreement”, describes how CONCACAF, via the company, employed Blazer as its general secretary, paying his company both monthly fees and “a 10% override fee on all sponsorships and TV rights fees from all sources received by CONCACAF or for CONCACAF programs/tournaments”, excluding “sponsorships arranged at the local level on tournaments and events.”

Also examined by Reuters are records documenting a $205,000 payment to Sportvertising Inc., dated September 2010. The records include a notation indicating the payment was on behalf of the CFU.

A third set of documents also in the FBI’s possession relates to a purported $250,000 payment by the CFU to Blazer earlier this year. A letter to a bank supervisor dated March 31, 2011, signed by Warner, authorizes the bank to issue a draft in the amount of $250,000 to “CHUCK BLAZE” and to debit the CFU’s account accordingly. A second document purports to be a copy of a $250,000 canceled check made out to Chuck Blazer.

In e-mails to Reuters, Blazer said two most recent payments to his company’s Cayman Islands accounts were in his view meant to be repayments to him by Warner of “a significant amount of money” that Blazer says he loaned to Warner in 2004.

Blazer said that as soon as he saw the most recent payment — in the form of a check from the Caribbean Football Union — he “immediately objected”.

“In the past few weeks I have learned that Mr Warner treated the CFU accounts as his personal accounts and co-mingled a variety of funds in those accounts,” Blazer said. He said he was now “working with the current CFU administration to bring in forensic accountants to attempt to untangle this mess.”

Earlier this year, shortly before FIFA’s governing body was scheduled to hold a vote on whether to re-elect the organization’s president, Sepp Blatter, Blazer publicly denounced Warner, a long-time ally, for his alleged involvement in a plot to hand cash bribes to Caribbean soccer officials in return for their votes to support a bid by Qatari soccer official Mohammed bin Hammam to replace Blatter as FIFA chief.

In the wake of Blazer’s allegations, Hammam was investigated by FIFA’s ethics committee on the bribery charges, found guilty of corruption, and banned for life from the game. Hammam is appealing against the FIFA life ban.

Warner, a FIFA vice president and longest-serving member of the world soccer group’s executive committee, was suspended by FIFA pending an inquiry into Blazer’s bribery allegations. In June, he resigned from all his positions in international soccer. FIFA dropped the investigation into Warner.

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9 Comments

  1. mrlilkkk
    August 17, 2011

    Fifa is worse than politics why do you think the head of our football in dominica is an ex politician. Another example is Jack Warner. http://www.soccernumber1.blogspot.com

  2. August 17, 2011

    whenever fifa plans to meet associations it make a statement to the press. The DFA president said today FIFA contacted them for a meeting. A search over the internet about that meeting was negative. Can someone tell me where I can get that information? Fifa already call 11 associations to meet no date given. But our DFA will meet on Weekend or next week before the 11 associations?
    strange.

    Last month our president could not attend because of prize giving. Before that he could not attend because of flight arrangements. Before that he could not attend because it was in miami

    What happened to the Avidavid he said he was prparing last week? come on this is serious.

    If he cannot attend why the treasurer cannot attend? just asking

  3. dangler
    August 17, 2011

    Mass corruption has been around for a long time and the existence of advance information technology is just merely exposing these crooked men and women on a wholesale basis. Ponzi skimmers, crooked ministers and prime ministers, deceitful religious leaders have all fallen victim to advance communication and information technology. While advance technology accounts for the discomfort in knowing that at any given moment one’s privacy can be violated it is also comforting to know that those whom we have trusted in public office and or religious responsibilities are more closely scrutinized. Even with the existence of such sophisticated monitoring be it through legal or illegal espionage these crooks still have the audacity to carry out their own agenda. It takes less than five seconds to trace a money laundering transaction. For example it took one email to notice that the Dominica treasury had been ripped off through a garbage bin transaction.
    Let it be known that as soon as your dirty works are done your dirty laundry shall be exposed.

  4. Football Fan
    August 17, 2011

    PJ, White and Barla…we waiting

  5. Hey
    August 17, 2011

    I’m sure PJ cannot sleep.

    At least they get something to accupy their time other than Roosevelt Skerrit

  6. August 17, 2011

    cool
    i agree. The honest members of the DFA should demand answers from those who went to the meeting because when the shit hit the fan some will fall on them. guys this is serious. the evidence is there that most of the people at the meeting took the money. Warner said that cah gifts in fifa is normal.

  7. August 17, 2011

    Fifa is serious. Our DFA is playing games with FIFA and will receive sanctions will come. Why are the other members of the DFA so quite. Are you guys not intrested in the future of our football or are you still afraid to speak

  8. Possie Man
    August 17, 2011

    Where does Dominica Fotball Association come in? . Considering the “kith and kin” relationship of the DFA boss with Jack Warner,one wonders whether the DFA did not play even if a not so significant role in the matter. Jack and PJ were real buddies. Evenif one sense an attempt to distance himslef from Jack, the records are clear. they are/were an inseparable pair in Caribbean footbal these last 12 years or so.

  9. SW
    August 17, 2011

    This is good news because the FBI has entered the fray and they getting close to Jack Warner it is SW fervent wish they collar not only Blazer but Warner too the Trinidadian rascal who brought disgrace to the Caribbean may yet get his comeuppance. Dont stop the investigations FBI take them all the way to Port Of spain or where ever international kleptomaniac Jack Warner hides out. He can thumb his nose at the Trinidad constabulary they are third world the FBI is a whole new ball game.

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