Season 1
The FIFA Files — Trailer
11. Russia's World Cup
1. The Informant
2. Dawn at the Baur au Lac
3. The Machine
4. The Network
5. The Report They Buried
6. The Bid
7. Five Million in Cash
8. The Vote
1 of 2
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. Built on documents. Every claim sourced. Independent. AI-assisted. Document-driven. Subscribe now so the launch lands automatically. Full transcripts and source links: thefifafiles.com
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.