Former FIFA
executive committee member Chuck Blazer, a key figure in a US investigation
into corruption by football officials, has been banned for life from football
activities by the sport's governing body.
Blazer, who in 2013 secretly pleaded guilty in
the US to bribery and financial offences, was found by FIFA's ethics committee
to have breached rules on loyalty, confidentiality, duty of disclosure,
conflicts of interest, offering and accepting gifts and bribery and corruption.
"Mr Blazer
committed many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly
during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential
positions at FIFA and CONCACAF [which governs the sport in North and Central
America and the Caribbean]," the ethics committee said in statement.
"In his
positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the
offer, acceptance, payment and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments,
bribes and kickbacks as well as other money-making schemes."
US-based lawyers
for Blazer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Through a 2013 US
plea agreement, Blazer become a cooperating witness in the US probe, which has
engulfed FIFA and pressured the governing body's president, Sepp Blatter, to
step down.
He agreed to
provide prosecutors information, turn over any documents he possessed related
to the probe, participate in undercover activities and testify at trial.
Since then the US
Justice Department has stunned FIFA by targeting a coterie of top officials
from the Americas as part of the probe.
Seven FIFA
officials were detained in a raid on a Zurich hotel on the eve of a FIFA
congress at which Blatter won reelection.
The seven are now
fighting extradition to the US and are among 14 new figures facing charges as
part of the same inquiry which snared Blazer.
In parallel, Swiss
authorities are investigating the attribution of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups
to Russia and Qatar. Amid corruption allegations, both countries have strongly
denied any wrongdoing.
Blazer, who is at
the age of 70, is now in hospital with rectal cancer, type 2 diabetes and
coronary artery disease.
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