American Huckster: How Chuck Blazer Got Rich From-and Sold Out-the Most Powerful Cabal in World Sports

The first inside account of the international soccer scandal that rocked the world and the American at its center—the incredible story of how a stay-at-home New York soccer dad illegally made millions off the world’s most powerful and corrupt sports organization and became an unlikely FBI whistleblower.

He was the middle-class Jewish kid from Queens who rose from local youth soccer leagues to the heights of FIFA, becoming a larger-than-life, jet-setting buccaneer—and the most notorious FBI informant in sports history. For years, Chuck Blazer skimmed over $20 million from FIFA, stashing his money in offshore accounts and real estate holdings that included a luxury apartment in Trump Tower, a South Beach condo, and a hideaway in the Bahamas. Instantly recognizable with his unruly mass of salt-and-pepper hair and matching beard—and a rotating crop of arm candy—Blazer was one of the most flamboyant figures in the glitzy social and political circles of international soccer. Over the course of thirty years, Blazer leveraged his friendships with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton and Nelson Mandela, to increase his influence with the mandarins of global soccer—most notably Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s long-time godfather.

Once Blatter tapped Blazer to be the first American in almost fifty years to sit on FIFA’s executive committee, the erstwhile accountant steadily accumulated money and power—until 2013 when the FBI and IRS nabbed Blazer and charged him with fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. In exchange for immunity, Blazer agreed to let the Feds install a microphone in his keychain to entrap his larcenous band of brothers—leading to the shocking arrest and indictment of eighteen FIFA officials for racketeering and bribery.

In this taut and suspenseful tale of white-collar crime and betrayal at the highest levels of international business, investigative reporters Mary Papenfuss and Teri Thompson draw on sources in U.S. law enforcement as well as in Blazer’s inner circle to tell the surreal tale of this astonishing character and the scandal that rocked the world.

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Where is home when you were born in the stars? 

Aza Ray is back on earth. Her boyfriend, Jason, is overjoyed. Her family is healed. She’s living a normal life, or as normal as it can be if? you’ve spent the past year dying, waking up on a skyship, and discovering that your song can change the world. 

As in, not normal. Part of Aza still yearns for the clouds, no matter how much she loves the people on the ground.

When Jason’s paranoia over Aza’s safety causes him to make a terrible mistake, Aza finds herself a fugitive in Magonia, tasked with opposing her radical, bloodthirsty, recently escaped mother, Zal Quel, and her singing partner, Dai. She must travel to the edge of the world in search of a legendary weapon, the Flock, in a journey through fire and identity that will transform her forever. 

In this stunning sequel to the critically acclaimed Magonia, one girl must make an impossible choice between two families, two homes—and two versions of herself. |

“Chuck Blazer is a character straight out of Damon Runyon. He may have been able to extort millions from the Lords of Soccer, but in American Huckster Teri Thompson and Mary Papenfuss deliver the definitive take-down of a world-class fraud.” - Mike Lupica

“Mary Papenfuss and Teri Thompson have done a fabulous job of unraveling the biggest corruption story in world sport. They’ve dug deep into documents they shouldn’t have seen, talked with people who can’t be named. American Huckster is a brilliant, gripping piece of work.” - Andrew Jennings, author of The Dirty Game: Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA

“Mary Papenfuss and Teri Thompson have rammed open a locked door, and ushered us into Chuck Blazer’s luxurious, and then desperate life as swindler-turned-informer. The authors introduce the full cast of charlatans, then go about bringing their nasty hijinks to life. American Huckster would make a great mystery or suspense novel. Unfortunately for the soccer world, it is nonfiction.” - Filip Bondy, author of Chasing the Game: America and the Quest for the World Cup