Chuck Blazer was once one of the most powerful figures in world soccer, living a lavish life in two apartments in New York’s Trump Tower, hobnobbing with the likes of Nelson Mandela and Vladimir Putin.
But on a November morning two years ago, he was in a Brooklyn courtroom, a defeated man sitting in a wheelchair and admitting that he and other international soccer officials had accepted bribes for their support in selecting the host countries for the World Cup in 1998 and 2010.
The brief hearing, captured in a 40-page transcript unsealed for the first time Wednesday, helped unravel the corruption scandal that now has engulfed FIFA, the international body of world soccer, and led to the indictment of 14 other officials and businessmen.