Globo buys the rights to a book about corruption in football and shelves the work so that no one will read it.
The Globo Group's publishing house bought the rights to the book "Red Card: How the U.S. Unveiled the Biggest Sports Scandal in the World"; the work, by journalist Ken Bensinger, details the FIFA corruption scandal revealed in 2015; mysteriously, however, the book was never published and remains shelved; Globo is mentioned four times in the book.
247 - The publishing house of Grupo Globo has acquired the rights to the book "Red Card: How the US Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal." The book, by journalist Ken Bensinger, details the FIFA corruption scandal revealed in 2015. Mysteriously, however, the book has never been published. Globo is mentioned four times in the book.
The Marinho family's publishing house bought the rights to the book in 2015, when the work was still in production. The launch in Brazil was planned for May 2018, before the World Cup, but was postponed. A Portuguese version of the book has been sold in Portugal since June. In the US, the book was released last June.
The author spoke with journalists Danielle Brant and Paulo Passos, who wrote a report published in Folha de S.Paulo (here"It's very strange, because they bought it, they paid me, someone from Globo showed my agent the manuscript in Portuguese, and it was supposed to be published in May, in June, in July, and it was never published," Bensinger stated.
In two of the four passages in which Globo appears in the book, the name mentioned is that of J. Hawilla. Before his death in 2018, he was an informant in the investigation by American authorities into corruption at FIFA. He admitted to paying bribes to officials in the purchase of broadcasting rights for FIFA and CBF tournaments. Hawilla worked at Globo as a reporter and later as head of the network's Sports department in the 1970s and 1980s, until he left the group to start his own business, but always maintaining a close and collaborative relationship with the network.
In another passage of the book, Bensinger reproduces Alejandro Buzarco's testimony in the investigation. He was the strongman of the Argentine marketing company Torneos y Competencias and stated that in November 2017 Globo and the Mexican broadcaster Televisa paid bribes to a FIFA official during negotiations to purchase broadcasting rights for the World Cup.