Review: 'Red Card: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal' shows FIFA's biggest drama is off the field

With the collective eyes of the soccer universe fixed on Russia and the 2018 World Cup, it’s another chance to celebrate the sport's players, history and passion.

It’s also a time to remember just how crooked, corrupt and greedy international soccer’s governing body, FIFA, has been through the years. "RED CARD: How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World’s Biggest Sports Scandal" (Simon & Schuster, 2018) won’t let anybody who follows soccer forget.

Fittingly released two days before Russia faced Saudi Arabia to open the 2018 World Cup, "RED CARD," the product of veteran journalist Ken Bensinger, meticulously documents how a team of law enforcement officials from the United States — a country that treats the world's most popular sport much like a second-class citizen — managed to get to the bottom of what became the largest international corruption case in sports history. For the casual soccer fan not completely familiar with the FIFA scandal, it would be hard to believe "RED CARD" isn’t a work of fiction.

Bensinger, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times and now part of the investigations team at BuzzFeed News, takes a novelistic approach in telling this story. He treats the real-life characters on both sides of the morality line as if they came straight from the pages of an organized crime thriller. In truth, FIFA prior to May 2015 had more in common with the mafia than a non-for-profit organization trying to champion a cause.

While FIFA started out with that intent, Bensinger describes how corruption within its Zurich headquarters and among its member confederations — specifically CONCACAF and CONMEBOL — has been going on for decades. Bribes, money laundering, kickbacks and fraud were as much a part of FIFA’s day-to-day operations as the planning of international tournaments and giving off the perception those in charge actually had the best interest of the game at heart.

Tales of "made men" like Chuck Blazer, the high-on-the-hog living former soccer dad and FIFA executive who took U.S. soccer to heights never thought possible, and made sure he took care of himself along the way, are prevalent. Trinidadian soccer official Jack Warner, whose ability to balance his hunger for power and greed was as impressive as it was depraved, and of course, Sepp Blatter, the longtime FIFA president, who managed to remain in charge while the organization fell apart, are at the forefront.

Not even the World Cup, the sport's quadrennial jewel, was immune from the ugliness created by FIFA’s high-ranking officials and at least one notable world leader.

Thoroughly researched and dynamically detailed, "RED CARD" takes the reader on a ride from one IRS agent's check of Blatter’s tax returns through the 2015 Zurich raids and the trial that followed — while subtly throwing in reminders that the sport of soccer was the true victim of all this.

Soccer fans from fervent club supporters to the every-four-years World Cup crowd can appreciate "RED CARD" for digging deep and going behind the scenes to superbly tell the story of an organization's actions that were as remarkable as they were disgraceful.