FIFA provisionally banned outgoing executive committee member Chuck Blazer of the United States from all soccer-related activities for 90 days on Monday after he was accused of embezzling at least $21 million.
Blazer had previously said he'll be giving up his seat on FIFA's ruling board when his term expires this month. He was accused of having enriched himself through fraud according to a report released in April by CONCACAF, the governing body for North and Central American and Caribbean soccer.
Blazer is a former secretary general of CONCACAF and was accused of embezzling at least $21 million by compensating himself with the body's funds without authorization. Blazer, the most senior American official at FIFA for 16 years, also allegedly bought some apartments with CONCACAF money.
He resigned as CONCACAF's secretary general in December 2011
FIFA said in a statement Monday that its ethics committee decided to provisionally ban Blazer ''based on the fact that various breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics appear to have been committed by'' the American.
Blazer has not commented on the ethics allegations.
The American was the whistle-blower in a bribery scandal involving his former boss at CONCACAF, Jack Warner. In June 2011, Warner resigned as the body's president after Blazer accused him and then-Asian confederation head Mohamed bin Hammam of attempting to bribe Caribbean delegates $40,000 each to vote for bin Hammam in the FIFA presidential election.
