Chuck Blazer's blog chronicles his lavish Fifa days
- Published
If ever you have wondered how a corrupt Fifa official spends their time and ill-gotten money then the blog Travels with Chuck Blazer and his friends, external will make for informative reading.
The blog was maintained by the Falstaffian figure who was once the domineering powerbroker of American soccer, but has now pleaded guilty to racketeering, wire fraud, money-laundering and income tax evasion.
A rotund, giant of a man, with an extravagant salt-and-pepper beard, Chuck Blazer bears more than a passing resemblance to the Roman god Neptune.
His taste for the high life also recalls the feasting of the gods. Fittingly, his pet parrots, which he kept in a glass aviary in his office in the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, were called Venus and Apollo.
His blog throws up a cornucopia of treasures.
There's his penchant for dressing up in costume - he makes for a natural pirate, less so an Obi-Wan Kenobi, although it is the shot of him posing as the devil, at Halloween in 2009, that inevitably catches the eye.
There's his taste for fine dining and champagne - his New Year's message in 2010 features an ice bucket full of bottles of Louis Roederer.
There's his love of exotic birds - not just his eclectus parrots, but also his multi-coloured macaw.
There's his eye for beautiful women - he is pictured alongside the 2008 and 2010 Miss Universes.
The company he appears to covet most, though, is that of the rich, famous and powerful.
Eminent footballers feature so prominently that the blog resembles a Panini sticker album of the game's all-time greats.
There's Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini and the Charlton brothers, Bobby and Jack. He is photographed alongside popes and princes - Pope John Paul II and Prince William, who he met during the 2010 World Cup when England played Algeria.
Then there are the politicians in the US and worldwide: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Evidently his most prized photographic possession, judging by its prominence on the blog's home page, is of him with Nelson Mandela. They are pictured flying together, in the cramped, though comfortable, cabin of an executive jet.
His globe-trotting travels take him all over, from the beaches of Rio to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, from the Super Bowl to Disneyworld, from the Miss Universe competition to his 50th anniversary school reunion (a fellow classmate at Forest Hills High School was the TV host Jerry Springer), from Robben Island to the Kremlin.
His visit to Moscow in November 2010, for an audience with President Vladimir Putin, is the subject of his most entertaining diary entry.
"A firm handshake and a personable smile set the tone for what turned out to be a very special experience," Blazer writes. "He looked at me with a very serious smile and said, without cracking a smile, "You know, you look like Karl Marx!'"
Blazer winked back and said "I know." Putin responded by leaning forward to give him a high five.
Following that trip, Blazer reportedly switched from supporting England's bid for the World Cup to Russia's.
His final entry was posted in February last year, but his travelogue is likely to feature when the Fifa cases come to trial in New York.
Confronted with evidence of his criminality, Blazer reportedly became an FBI informant, and secretly recorded meetings on a microphone implanted in a key fob.
Now his blog is defunct, save for a panel on the side, automatically updated by Google, which provides a feed of "Soccer Stories in the News".
Those articles chronicle not the travels of Chuck Blazer, but rather his speedy downfall.