The FIFA Files

The FIFA Files — Trailer

Sat, 09 May 2026 12:11:57 GMT

December 2011, Trump Tower. A bearded man with $11 million in unpaid taxes is about to become the most consequential informant in the history of world football.

The FIFA Files is an investigative documentary podcast from Open Source Network. Five-episode launch — Saturday 22 May 2026.

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Full transcripts and source links: thefifafiles.com

11. Russia's World Cup

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 05:00:00 GMT

The other envelope opened on 2 December 2010. Russia. The 2018 World Cup. The investigation that followed ran into something it had not encountered on the Qatari side: the physical destruction of the bid's primary records. Garcia's investigators were told the bid committee's computers had been physically destroyed and the email accounts closed. What survives in the public record is a sketch of corruption rather than a financial trail.

In this episode:

- Vitaly Mutko's career arc: bid chairman, sports minister, FIFA Executive Committee member, banned for life from the Olympic movement in 2017 over Russia's state-sponsored doping programme

- The Putin paintings: gifts of art from a head of state to FIFA voters — outside FIFA's then-rules, never proved as direct inducements

- The McLaren Report findings on Russian state-sponsored doping, and what they tell us about the institutional environment the bid ran in

- Why the FBI's racketeering case never produced a Russia 2018 vote-buying charge — and why FIFA suspended Russia from international football four days after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine

Key documents cited:

- Garcia Report (full text, 27 June 2017), Russia chapter

- McLaren Independent Investigation Report, Parts I and II (2016)

- FIFA Council decision suspending Russia, 28 February 2022

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/11-russias-world-cup

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The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

1. The Informant

Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

December 2011. An overweight, bearded American man is approached by FBI agents outside his apartment in Trump Tower. He owes $11 million in unpaid taxes on hidden income. He keeps a separate apartment in the same building — for his cats. His name is Chuck Blazer, and he is about to become the most consequential informant in the history of world football.

In this episode:

• How Chuck Blazer rose from a youth-team organiser in Westchester County to General Secretary of CONCACAF

• The IRS investigation that gave the FBI its leverage — and the wire he wore to the 2012 London Olympics

• Blazer's November 2013 sealed guilty plea: 10 federal counts including racketeering, wire fraud, and tax evasion

• The bribes Blazer admitted accepting — including for the 2010 World Cup vote that sent the tournament to South Africa

Key documents cited:

• US Department of Justice indictment, May 2015

• Chuck Blazer's unsealed guilty plea transcript (E.D.N.Y., November 25, 2013)

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/1-the-informant

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

2. Dawn at the Baur au Lac

Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

6:00 AM, May 27, 2015. Plain-clothes Swiss police walk into the lobby of the Baur au Lac, a five-star hotel in Zurich, carrying arrest warrants for seven of the most powerful officials in world football. The men are in town for FIFA's annual congress. They are led out covered by hotel bedsheets.

In this episode:

Who was arrested — Jeffrey Webb, Jack Warner's network, the men running the regional confederations
The 47-count US indictment unsealed in Brooklyn the same morning: $150 million in bribes over 24 years
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch's press conference — and why the United States had jurisdiction over Swiss arrests
Sepp Blatter wins re-election as FIFA president forty-eight hours later

Key documents cited:

US Department of Justice indictment, 27 May 2015 (E.D.N.Y.)
Loretta Lynch press conference transcript, 27 May 2015
New York Times reporting, 27 May 2015

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/2-dawn-at-the-baur-au-lac

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The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

3. The Machine

Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

A briefcase. A hotel room. An envelope slid under a door. This is how the biggest deals in world football have been done for thirty years — not in boardrooms, but in back channels. This episode follows the money.

In this episode:

The architecture of FIFA corruption — the regional confederations, the executive committee, and the voting blocs that made it work
Jack Warner and the Caribbean: $10 million in bribes traced through a single career
How South American TV rights deals — Traffic Sports USA, the middlemen, the kickbacks — became the primary vehicle for a quarter-century of payments
Why FIFA's self-policing structure made detection nearly impossible

Key documents cited:

US Department of Justice superseding indictment, December 2015
Cleary Gottlieb compliance analysis
Bloomberg and PBS investigative reporting on Traffic Sports

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/3-the-machine

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The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

4. The Network

Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

A spreadsheet. Rows of wire transfers. $50,000 here, $200,000 there, $3 million in a single transfer. Each line is a bribe. Each bribe bought a vote, a contract, a silence. This is the network behind the men who were arrested.

In this episode:

The sports-marketing executives who built the corruption infrastructure — and pleaded guilty to it
The money trail across continents: Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Miami
The national football associations that took the money — and what it meant for grassroots football in the countries that needed funding most
Who flipped, who fought, and who fled in the eighteen months after the Zurich arrests

Key documents cited:

US Department of Justice superseding indictment, December 2015
Second Circuit Court of Appeals opinion
Guilty plea agreements unsealed via E.D.N.Y. court records

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/4-the-network

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

5. The Report They Buried

Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Michael Garcia, a former US Attorney, is hired by FIFA to investigate corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. He spends two years interviewing witnesses across the globe. His report runs to 350 pages. FIFA's response is to publish a 42-page summary that Garcia himself calls "materially incomplete" and "erroneous." Then he resigns.

In this episode:

Who Michael Garcia is, what FIFA hired him to do, and why his findings were buried
What the full Garcia Report says about Qatar's bid — the Aspire Academy payments, private jets for FIFA officials days before the vote
What it says about Russia's bid — destroyed computers, missing evidence, a trail that went cold
Garcia's resignation in protest, and the 2017 leak that finally put his findings into the public record — long after the World Cups were awarded

Key documents cited:

The Garcia Report (leaked 2017)
FIFA Ethics Committee summary, 13 November 2014
Garcia's resignation statement

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/5-the-report-they-buried

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

6. The Bid

Mon, 25 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

February 2009. The State of Qatar — population 1.7 million, of whom 280,000 are Qatari nationals — announces it intends to host the largest sporting event on earth. Its national team has never qualified for a World Cup. Its top domestic league plays in front of crowds in the hundreds. Outdoor temperatures in June and July routinely pass 50°C. It has money, and it has a plan.

In this episode:

- Why Qatar bid in the first place — and the five-rival field that included a heavy US favourite

- What the bid book actually promised: twelve air-conditioned carbon-neutral stadiums, a summer tournament, $200 billion of state-funded infrastructure

- The FIFA inspection report that rated Qatar "high operational risk" — the only 2022 bidder to receive that grade

- The October 2010 Sunday Times sting that suspended two ExCo voters two weeks before the ballot

Key documents cited:

- FIFA Bid Evaluation Report for the 2018/2022 World Cup, November 2010

- Qatar 2022 Bid Book, May 2010

- Sunday Times "World Cup Vote for Sale" investigation, 17 October 2010

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/6-the-bid

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

7. Five Million in Cash

Tue, 26 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Mohamed bin Hammam was the most senior Qatari in world football. Member of the FIFA Executive Committee. President of the Asian Football Confederation. In 2014, the Sunday Times obtained millions of secret documents from his offices — emails, bank statements, accounting records. They told the story of a parallel campaign that ran alongside Qatar's official bid. Around $5 million, ten accounts, named recipients across four continents.

In this episode:

- The "Insight" investigation by Jonathan Calvert and Heidi Blake — what the documents showed and how they got them

- Africa first: payments routed to officials whose votes Qatar needed, in the months before the ballot

- Port of Spain, May 2011: $40,000 cash envelopes handed to Caribbean Football Union delegates — the only piece tested in formal proceedings

- Why no court ever convicted bin Hammam of vote-buying for Qatar 2022, despite two life bans from football

Key documents cited:

- Sunday Times "The Plot to Buy the World Cup," 1 June 2014 onwards

- FIFA Ethics Committee decisions, 2011–2012

- Court of Arbitration for Sport decision, 19 July 2012

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/7-five-million-in-cash

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

8. The Vote

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

2 December 2010. A windowless conference room inside the Messe Zurich. Twenty-two men, secret paper ballots, two World Cups awarded in a single afternoon. Russia 2018. Qatar 2022. Bill Clinton in the audience expecting the United States to win — and, by his own staff's later account, throwing an ornament at a hotel mirror that evening.

In this episode:

- Round-by-round vote totals for both ballots — including England's two votes for 2018 and Qatar's fourteen-to-eight final-round defeat of the United States

- The bidders in the room: the Triple Crown delegation, Bill Clinton and Morgan Freeman, the Emir of Qatar, Igor Shuvalov standing in for Vladimir Putin

- The vote-trading allegation between Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 — what the Garcia investigation found, and what the destroyed Russian computers prevented it finding

- Why FIFA changed the rules afterwards: the 2026 award (USA / Canada / Mexico) was the first decided by public Congress vote

Key documents cited:

- FIFA Executive Committee voting records, 2 December 2010

- Garcia Report (full text, released 27 June 2017)

- Australian Senate inquiry into the FIFA World Cup bid, 2014–2015

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/8-the-vote

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

9. Desert Gold

Thu, 28 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Episode 7 was the cash. This is everything that wasn't cash. The Aspire Academy in Doha, founded in 2004 with a $2.4 billion endowment. Football Dreams scouting programmes in seventeen countries — many of them, by 2010, with FIFA Executive Committee voters. A Brazil-Argentina friendly in Doha fifteen days before the ballot. A private aircraft. The Garcia Report called it "a troubling pattern."

In this episode:

- How Aspire's Football Dreams country list closely tracked the geography of the FIFA voters Qatar needed

- The 17 November 2010 Doha friendly: $1.5 million paid to the Argentine FA to bring Brazil and Argentina to the Khalifa Stadium

- The private flights to Brazil days before the vote — three FIFA voters, on a Qatari Football Association aircraft, on no official FIFA business

- Where the line sits between lobbying, sponsorship, and corruption — and why FIFA's Ethics Committee chose not to draw it

Key documents cited:

- Garcia Report (full text, released 27 June 2017)

- Aspire Zone Foundation public records

- Eckert Summary of the Garcia findings, 13 November 2014

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/9-desert-gold

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

10. The Builders

Fri, 29 May 2026 05:00:00 GMT

To deliver what the bid book promised — twelve stadiums, a metro, an airport expansion, a new port, hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms — Qatar imported a workforce. By 2017, more than two million migrants were in the country, outnumbering Qatari nationals seven to one. Most came from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kenya and the Philippines, recruited under fees of $1,000 to $4,000 paid to agents in their home countries.

In this episode:

- The kafala system, recruitment debt, confiscated passports — the structural conditions that locked workers into employment they could not leave

- The Guardian's Pete Pattisson investigation, 2013–2022, including the 6,500 figure — what that number actually means

- The Cardiff University 2019 study finding that ~200 Nepalese deaths recorded as "natural causes" were likely heat-related

- The 2017–2020 ILO reform programme: the dismantling of kafala, the wage protection system, the Gulf's first non-discriminatory minimum wage — and where implementation has fallen short

Key documents cited:

- Guardian, "Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded" (Pete Pattisson, 23 February 2021)

- Amnesty International, "All Work, No Pay" (September 2016) and follow-ups through 2022

- ILO Qatar country reports (2016–2022); Cardiff University study, Cardiology (2019)

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/10-the-builders

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.

12. The Reckoning That Never Came

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 11:00:00 GMT

By the end of 2017 — when the full Garcia Report was released, when the Sunday Times had been publishing for three years, when seven FIFA officials had been led out of a Zurich hotel under bedsheets — the case for institutional action was as clear as it was ever going to be. Nothing happened. Russia 2018 went ahead. Qatar 2022 went ahead. No World Cup was moved, no host was stripped, no senior FIFA official was sanctioned for the conduct of the bidding.

In this episode:

- The three procedural mechanisms that could have re-opened the votes — and why each one wasn't invoked

- Sepp Blatter's repeated public admission that the 2010 vote was "a mistake" — what an admission means without action

- Domenico Scala, FIFA's senior compliance figure, and his May 2016 resignation in protest

- The 2017 reform that came instead — and why the December 2024 Saudi Arabia 2034 award is the operative test of what it actually changed

Key documents cited:

- Garcia Report (full text, 27 June 2017)

- Domenico Scala resignation letter, 13 May 2016

- FIFA Congress voting records: 2026 award (June 2018), 2030 award (October 2024), Saudi Arabia 2034 award (11 December 2024)

Full transcript and source links: thefifafiles.com/episodes/12-the-reckoning-that-never-came

Subscribe to the OSN newsletter for source PDFs and behind-the-scenes: thefifafiles.com/newsletter

The FIFA Files is an Open Source Network production. Every document tells a story.