Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal

ISBN: 1501133918

Author: Bensinger, Ken

Condition: New

The definitive, shocking account of the FIFA scandal-the biggest corruption case of recent years-involving dozens of countries and implicating nearly every aspect of the worlds most popular sport, soccer, including the World Cup is an engrossing and jaw-dropping tale of international intrigueA riveting book (The New York Times).The FIFA case began small, boosted by an IRS agents review of an American soccer officials tax returns. But that humble investigation eventually led to a huge worldwide corruption scandal that crossed continents and reached the highest levels of the soccers world governing body in Switzerland.The meeting of American investigative reporting and real-life cop show (The Financial Times), Ken Bensingers Red Card explores the case, and the personalities behind it, in vivid detail. Theres Chuck Blazer, a high-living soccer dad who ascended to the highest ranks of the sport while creaming millions from its coffers; Jack Warner, a Trinidadian soccer official whose lust for power was matched only by his boundless greed; and the sports most powerful man, FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who held on to his position at any cost even as soccer rotted from the inside out.Remarkably, this corruption existed for decades before American law enforcement officials began to secretly dig, finally revealing that nearly every aspect of the planets favorite sport was corrupted by bribes, kickbacks, fraud, and money laundering. Not even the World Cup, the most-watched sporting event in history, was safe from the thick web of corruption, as powerful FIFA officials extracted their bribes at every turn. A gripping white-collar crime thriller that, in its scope and human drama, ranks with some of the best investigative business books of the past thirty years (The Wall Street Journal), Red Card goes beyond the headlines to bring the real story to light.