On August 16, 2011 the news agency Reuters launches an article meaningfully titled: The FBI examines the financial records of an American soccer kingpin. The choice of terminology is, in all likelihood, not very casual because the operating method discovered during the investigation by federal agents appears to be very similar to that used by organized crime.
$500 in suspicious payments received over a XNUMX-year period from "an American soccer official named Chuck Blazer," a high-level executive at FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, "the governing body of world football".
Special agent Steve Berryman of the Internal Revenue Service, the United States revenue agency, immediately had the impression that "investigating Chuck Blazer's tax troubles was like stopping someone for a malfunctioning rear light and discovering that he had a trunk full of corpses.'
Dozens of people from more than fifteen countries were "accused of violating the United States' stringent organized crime, money laundering, fraud and tax evasion laws." After decades of absolute impunity, despite the scandals, "the global football cartel" was brought to its knees by one of the few countries in the world that didn't seem to care much about this sport. An investigation that was the result of "the careful and patient work of scrupulous investigators", an operation that began small and became immensely vast, "and which is still ongoing".
Investigative reporter Ken Bensinger writes Red card, released in Italy by Newton Compton Editori with the title Red card, as an attempt to schematize a single criminal case of the "corruption saga within FIFA and world football". A network so "complicated and far too extensive" to find space in a single book.
A book that helps a lot in understanding a vast and serious phenomenon of which, despite repeated scandals and judicial investigations, very little is known and even less is admitted.
The investigative work done by Bensinger in Red card it is very thorough and detailed. The book is an account that tries to get to the heart of the matter and has been written in a deceptively simple style, which is actually very clear. The narrative register used is that of a novel but the structure is certainly that of an investigative report.
Throughout the trial and in his final arguments, "the defense had never argued that football was not corrupted". However, while the other officials had taken bribes, "their clients hadn't." Simply, they said, the investigation had gone too far and "accused innocent men." An investigation and a process that transversally involved people belonging to FIFA, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, AFC, numerous national football federations, Grupo Traffic Sao Pãulo and Miami, the Torneos Competencias and Full Play Group of Buenos Aires, International Soccer Marketing in Jersey City. Those that Bensinger lists at the beginning of the text indicating them as the "main characters".
The biggest scandal in the history of football that "FIFA buried" and which, precisely for this reason, it is necessary to continue to investigate, write, talk, tell, understand. AND Red card by Ken Bensinger proves to be a great tool for doing this.
Author biography
Ken Bensinger, American journalist. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and BuzzFeed. Awards winner ASME National Magazine e Gerald Loeb Award, was also a finalist at the Pulitzer Prize.
Reference Bibliography
Ken Bensinger, Red card. How FIFA buried the biggest scandal in football history,Newton Compton Editori 2018. Translation by Cristina Popple of the original English text Red Card.
FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), Zurich.
CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football), New York and Miami.
CONMEBOL (Confederación Sudamericana de Futbol), Asuncion, Paraguay
A.F.C. (Asian Football Confederation), Kuala Lumpur.
