Chuck Blazer

Charles Gordon Blazer (April 26, 1945 – July 12, 2017) was an American soccer administrator, who held a number of high level positions before becoming a government informant on widespread corruption within organized soccer and subsequently being banned by FIFA in 2015. He was a FIFA Executive Committee member from 1996 to 2013, the CONCACAF general secretary from 1990 to 2011, and executive vice president of the U.S. Soccer Federation.

In 2013, Blazer admitted to conspiring with other FIFA executive committee members to accept bribes in conjunction with the failed bid of Morocco and the successful bid of South Africa to become World Cup hosts in 1998 and 2010, respectively. His admissions came during testimony given at a sealed sentencing proceeding in a New York federal court.

Blazer grew up in a middle-class New York City Jewish family in the borough of Queens, where his father ran a stationery and newspaper shop. He attended Forest Hills High School and then took an accountancy degree at New York University. After graduating, he enrolled at NYU's Stern School of Business but did not complete his MBA. He then spent a number of years selling promotional and marketing items; a first success was supplying buttons for the Smiley craze in the 1970s. When his son started playing youth soccer in Westchester County, New York, in 1976, Blazer started coaching the team even though he had never played the game. He is remembered as a skillful and active administrator, more interested in organizing than coaching. He advanced in youth soccer administration up to the Eastern New York State Soccer Association.

In 1984, persuading Pelé to campaign for him, he was elected to the United States Soccer Federation as executive vice president in charge of international competition. In the next two years the U.S. men's soccer team played 19 matches, having played only two in the two years before Blazer's election. While with U.S. soccer, Blazer played a central role in the decision to make the successful bid for the 1994 World Cup. Also during this time, the U.S. women's soccer team was formed. Blazer's position gave him a seat on the board of CONCACAF, where he met Jack Warner. In 1986, after failing to win re-election, he co-founded the American Soccer League, running it from his home. Blazer was forced out by the owners, who felt they had been kept in the dark about finances, within two years. He became president of the Miami Sharks, taking control of the finances, but left precipitously after five months, in May 1989.

In 1989, Blazer convinced Jack Warner to run for CONCACAF president. Blazer managed Warner's successful campaign and was then appointed General Secretary. He was the General Secretary of CONCACAF from 1990 until 2011. He was a member of the FIFA Executive Committee from 1996 to April 2013, when Sunil Gulati was elected to replace him.

Blazer married Susan Aufox in 1965; they had one daughter and one son together and later divorced. He had two apartments on the 49th floor of Trump Tower – one for himself and one allegedly for his cats.

Blazer died on July 12, 2017, at a New Jersey hospital at the age of 72. At the time of his death, he had colorectal cancer, coronary artery disease and diabetes.