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

A look at internal corruption within world football body.

although i enjoyed reading the book i found it difficult at times to follow who was bribing who and who held the power. a flow chart or two would have helped... but it is worth reading

If you follow soccer - read this - the ugly back-offices of soccer. You learn how the last three Presidents of CONCACAF and CONMEBOL have been charged with corruption, wire fraud and racketeering. You will also learn how these officials enrich themselves. If one is in the US you might wonder how it is that only one US actor is captured in this dragnet, despite having career long friendships and business relationships with all the current players in USSF. You learn that this former Secretary General of CONCACAF, who was deeply involved in the CONCACAF corrupt practices, had his private office in of all places in TRUMP Tower, NYC, and effectively had a year to 'clean-up' his office after learning of the charges and evidence against him. If you also read "Sneaker Wars" you will learn the fundamental changes in professional sport, including soccer that contributed to the events described in this book. These two books allow the reader a window into the forces that shape the often confounding actions of the FIFA and their affiliates around the world including the USSF. It's the money!

Got this book for my German dad who does not have any streaming services. He said he hadn’t read a book since he came to the US in 1961. He read it in 3 days! Enough said ;)

The book should be shorten to a half of the pages. Too many same stories.

The book is like a step by step how to catch a thief novel. The most interesting parts are the fact that at the start of the entire investigation is a dossier by that same Christopher Steele that we have all heard about. Steele didn't start it, but the FBI starts listening after Steele's information comes to them. The books shows how the FBI goes about its job; check, double check and check again. Don't rush anything. How to put pressure on an conspirator without letting him know that he is an object of interest. It also shows how difficult it is to work with countries who have governments that feel pressure from their rich and powerful and those like Switzerland who don't care where the money in their bank vaults comes from, just so it stays there. Well-written, something that everyone with an opinion on the Russian probe should read.

To stay alive, small business often needs to operate outside the edges of what’s legal. And international football used to be small business. So, with the exception of the odd British gentleman here or there, international football used to be run by small time crooks.And then, suddenly, sponsors arrived, gagging to spend money. The money was lavished on the same small-time crooks, who did not even think of ever changing their ways. Coca Cola and Adidas are credited with starting this dance and Sepp Blatter with ceasing the opportunity. It did not occur to him or to anybody else within his band of crooks that they could do both: get rich and play it straight. Bent was all they knew. Hell, Chuck Blazer, the man in charge of football in the US did not even think of filing his taxes. For seventeen years! In the United States of America…This type of theft is victimless crime, of course. And it wasn’t huge money either, in the bigger scheme of things. Some of these “lavish” parties the author talks about cost less than my wedding. So it ran and ran until it was stopped by... Americans! This is the book about how they did it.I’ll get the good part out of the way first: the author tells the story amazingly well. If you want to know about corruption in football, it’s all here. If you want to know when the corruption took off and how, it’s all here. You find out precisely how the small-time crooks used to run football and what they did when it finally rained money. You learn about layering and smurfing and it’s ten times more exciting than the compliance test you take once a year at the bank. If you want to find out who Jack Warner is, who Sepp Blatter is and who Chuck Blazer was, you’ve come to the right place.The best bit is that this reads like a thriller. If it was all a made-up story, it would still be worth reading. The author is careful not to bombard you with too many names at a time. He builds his characters and helps you see how they evolve. And he writes in a way that forces you to keep reading.It’s also a tremendous book to read if you want to find out how the American justice system works. How a case is built, how the cops ambush the sundry miscreants and “flip” them into ratting on their superiors, all the way to…Ah, that’s the bad part of the story. Sepp Blatter is still free. Ooops.The depressing part of the book is that it reminds you how broken American justice is these days. Armed with RICO and wiretaps and fighting against people who had no idea anybody was watching, crooks with no legal team to fall back on, foreigners who did not avail themselves of their right to counsel, this five-year saga ends with two second-string crooks going to jail and one walking.Yes, many of the crooks had to pay a decent chunk of money as part of their plea, but pretty much all of them ended up much richer than they started. Some can no longer travel internationally; a couple of them saw their health suffer, but the outcome is depressing. Justice was not served.Oh, and the only Harvard man in the entire team of prosecutors ends up working at Cravath. Indeed, not a single member of the team who prosecuted the FIFA guys was still involved in the case as it drew to its close, most of them using their role serving you and me as finishing school before their private-sector jobs. It’s no wonder we did even worse with the perpetrators of the subprime disaster in ’08.But none of that stuff is author Ken Bensinger’s fault. He’s done a tremendous job of turning this rounding up of small-time thieves into a thriller.I’m only cutting him a star because to my taste he sings the FBI’s and the IRS’s praises a bit too much.

I was fascinated from the moment I started reading this story. I’ve been a lifelong soccer fan and knew who each of these FIFA crooks are. I worked as a soccer reporter in the first half of my career and as passionate I am about soccer and investigative reporting, I wouldn’t have told this story better than Bensinger — not even close. Exceptional read for all soccer fans, especially those who bought a soccer jersey that ended up in the pockets of these crooks.

I devoured this account of the FIFA investigation. It is not always pleasant to discover how greedy and corrupt some of these soccer officials were, but it was nonetheless illuminating. The author has an excellent way of turning what could have been a boring list of criminal activities into a lively and dramatic story. If you love soccer, in spite of all the corruption that surrounds it, this is a must. Sadly, FIFA’s ridiculous decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams shows that money still matters above all other considerations, even with a new president. I fear that there will be a sequel to this book in a few years...

Overhyped and overrated, does not understand the real topic and the wider picture. One-side description of the matters that fails to provide complete insight

Excellent thorough analysis and story on FIFA and its long history of corruption.

excellent read