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Chuck Blazer, former
FIFA executive committee member
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The U.S. judge presiding over the corruption cases of
indicted soccer officials has ordered the unsealing of the plea agreement
between former FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer and the U.S.
government.
Reuters reports media outlets last week
called for the plea agreement to be unsealed in the wake of the indictments of
14 soccer and media executives for corruption but U.S. authorities have opposed
the move.
"Because the court
concludes that the government has not met its high burden of establishing that
continued sealing is necessary to prevent a substantial probability of
prejudice to a compelling government interest, the applications to unseal the
agreement are granted," U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie in Brooklyn,
New York, wrote on Thursday.
Dearie stayed his order
until Monday, giving prosecutors time to consider whether to appeal his
decision. The judge also gave the government until Friday to apply to redact
any portion of the agreement.
Blazer, the former
general secretary of CONCACAF, soccer's governing body in North and Central
America and the Caribbean, secretly pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts in New
York in 2013 as part of an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, according to a
transcript of the hearing released last week.
Blazer told Dearie in
2013 that he and other FIFA officials took bribes in connection with the 1998
and 2010 World Cups among other tournaments.
According to U.S.
officials, Blazer's cooperation has helped build the sprawling corruption case
that has engulfed FIFA and led the governing body's president Sepp Blatter to
announce his resignation only days after winning re-election for a fifth term.
Blazer, 70, is one of
four individuals in the case who pleaded guilty in secret and agreed to assist
U.S. investigators.
A Justice Department
spokeswoman declined comment. Blazer's lawyer did not immediately respond to a
request for comment on Friday.
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