Red Card, Ken Bensinger
Red Card, Ken Bensinger
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Red Card
How the U.S. Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal

Author: Ken Bensinger

Narrator: Jonathan Todd Ross

Unabridged: 11 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/12/2018


Synopsis

The definitive, shocking account of the FIFA scandal—the biggest corruption case of recent years—involving dozens of countries and implicating nearly every aspect of the world’s most popular sport, soccer, including the World Cup is “an engrossing and jaw-dropping tale of international intrigue…A riveting book” (The New York Times).

The FIFA case began small, boosted by an IRS agent’s review of an American soccer official’s tax returns. But that humble investigation eventually led to a huge worldwide corruption scandal that crossed continents and reached the highest levels of the soccer’s world governing body in Switzerland.

“The meeting of American investigative reporting and real-life cop show” (The Financial Times), Ken Bensinger’s Red Card explores the case, and the personalities behind it, in vivid detail. There’s Chuck Blazer, a high-living soccer dad who ascended to the highest ranks of the sport while creaming millions from its coffers; Jack Warner, a Trinidadian soccer official whose lust for power was matched only by his boundless greed; and the sport’s most powerful man, FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who held on to his position at any cost even as soccer rotted from the inside out.

Remarkably, this corruption existed for decades before American law enforcement officials began to secretly dig, finally revealing that nearly every aspect of the planet’s favorite sport was corrupted by bribes, kickbacks, fraud, and money laundering. Not even the World Cup, the most-watched sporting event in history, was safe from the thick web of corruption, as powerful FIFA officials extracted their bribes at every turn. “A gripping white-collar crime thriller that, in its scope and human drama, ranks with some of the best investigative business books of the past thirty years” (The Wall Street Journal), Red Card goes beyond the headlines to bring the real story to light.

About Ken Bensinger

Ken Bensinger has been a journalist for more than twenty years. He has worked at The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and, since 2014, for BuzzFeed News, as a member of its investigations team, and has written about sports, labor, art, automobiles, and politics, among other topics. He has been a winner of the ASME National Magazine award and the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Finance & Business Reporting, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting. He grew up in Seattle, graduated from Duke University, and lives with his wife, two children, and dog, in Los Angeles. Red Card is his first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Khyati on June 22, 2019

In a long time, I read a book which is young adult fiction and still managed to convince my heart that Yay! I loved it. Red Card by Kautuk Srivastava is undoubtedly one of my best reads of this year and I am gonna recommend it to all. Teenage is a delicate age when a child undergoes a wide array of c......more

Goodreads review by Sheryl on September 08, 2020

Red card is a breath of fresh air. It transports you back to simpler times, and paints a vivid picture of school life through strokes of relatable events, leaving one reminiscing. Srivastava uses his comical talent to thoroughly lace his story with witty remarks. This makes the book a delightful, lu......more

Goodreads review by Pari on June 02, 2019

A nostalgic read, Red Card is all about the woozy – dizzies of first love and whoopsie – daisies of unfiltered aggression, the constant parental pressure, the zeal towards a sport or hobby, the blind loyalty towards one’s team, the insights and outlooks and, confusions of a teen, in general. All the......more

Goodreads review by Gayatri on June 09, 2019

RED CARD by Kautuk Srivastava is a coming of age story that brings back all your teenage memories. First off, football fan or not, you need to pick this book up. The story begins with the nail-biting FIFA WORLD final between France and Italy and the infamous Zidane headbutt incident. As all the Frenc......more

Goodreads review by Murtaza on June 14, 2019

One team. One year. Everything to lose. Blurb (From Amazon) : When Rishabh Bala reaches the tenth standard, life takes a turn for the complicated. The bewildered boy feels the pressure of the looming board exams and finds himself hopelessly-and hormonally-in love. But what he yearns for most is victo......more