Red Card

February 1, 2018

In his first book, Loeb Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bensinger details the recent scandal engulfing FIFA, the international governing board of football--called soccer in America, where an IRS review of a soccer official's tax returns launched an investigation that led to multiple global indictments involving wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. Just in time for the 2018 World Cup.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2018
Investigating and prosecuting corruption in the world's most popular sport.On May 27, 2015, after several years of slow, meticulous investigation on the part of a number of agencies, most notably the American FBI and IRS, Swiss police conducted sweeping arrests of large numbers of high-ranking functionaries gathered for elections for Zurich-based FIFA, world soccer's governing body. Corruption across the sport has been endemic for decades, and in this fine, deeply researched, painstakingly assembled book, BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Bensinger shows how American agencies homed in on corruption within CONCACAF, the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean. Fortunately, the narrative is not as ham-handed as the subtitle, which turns the years of investigation into some sort of simplistic nationalist triumph. Working diligently for years, FBI and IRS officials revealed patterns of corruption--bribery, graft, outright theft--much of which passed through American banks and other institutions and which amounted, in their estimation, to racketeering. A focus on the two highest-ranking CONCACAF officials--the deeply compromised American Chuck Blazer and Trinidadian Jack Warner--expanded to include a large swath of FIFA's hierarchy, especially in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. The book is deeply sourced. However, because of Bensinger's reliance on hundreds of hours of interviews with anonymous sources, it is somewhat thinly documented, and readers will have to trust the force of the argument and the mountains of clear evidence (as well as the successful prosecutions). As the author notes, "the saga of corruption within FIFA and worldwide soccer as a whole is immeasurably complicated." Perhaps most shocking is that there is little evidence that FIFA and organizations such as CONCACAF have really cleaned up their acts.A deeply forensic investigation of the depth of corruption within FIFA and its regional bodies that also shows how much work goes into high-level criminal investigations.

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Starred review from April 30, 2018
In his intense first book, investigative journalist Bensinger explores the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into corruption at the highest levels of international soccer. The story begins with a 2011 Google alert received by Steve Berryman, an Internal Revenue Service special agent and zealous soccer fan, about high-ranking FIFA official Chuck Blazer—an American whose financial records were under examination by the FBI. With that tip, Berryman teamed with FBI agents to go after Blazer, who, facing significant federal charges, eventually became the government’s most helpful cooperator in the investigation. Bensinger colorfully details the global pursuit of Blazer’s cronies that climaxed in May 2015, when several FIFA officials were arrested for allegedly accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to influence the selection of host countries for the World Cup. Among those arrested were Jack Warner, a cocky yet quiet Trinidadian who was president of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, and his successor, Jeffrey Webb, a Caymanian with five homes in the U.S. and aspirations of becoming president of FIFA. A total of 18 people were indicted, and the fallout from the scandal included the resignation of FIFA’s longtime president, Sepp Blatter. With the flair of a novelist, Bensinger meticulously chronicles the magnitude of corruption that permeates the world’s most popular sport.

Starred review from May 1, 2018
Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? With mere weeks to go before the 2018 World Cup kicks off in Russia, consider this account of the shocking corruption scandal that engulfed global soccer after the May 2015 arrests in Switzerland of top officials, sports marketers, and others. Writing with deep inside knowledge of the key players and events in the U.S.-led investigation, veteran journalist Bensinger manages to give a mind-bogglingly complex cast of characters and time lines the pace and plot of a crackling white-collar-crime thriller. Other books have preceded it, notably David Conn's The Fall of the House of FIFA (2017), but this one proves well worth the wait, lending nuance and understanding to a tale of greed and venality that grows no less jaw-dropping over time. Leaders of regional soccer associations conspired with sports-marketing firms and demanded ever-increasing bribes for TV and other rights to tournaments (Gold Cup, Copa America, etc.) while avoiding taxes, living in luxury, and ensuring that little of the cash river ever trickled down to neighborhood playing fields. Six- and seven-figure bribes, a sports-marketing company that literally bribed itself into insolvency, and more and more?all culminating in a U.S. RICO indictment on the grounds that soccer itself had become a corrupt criminal enterprise. And as for the allegations that FIFA delegates were bribed to vote for host countries South Africa, Russia, and Qatar? Utterly true?and yet the games go on. It may be a beautiful game on the field, but in the backrooms and boardrooms, it's downright disgusting. Anyone seeking crystal-clear understanding of the rot in soccer can start with this remarkable book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)