Hi Paul. Hi Ardly. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm so good. It's so great to have you on Small Town Dicks. Oh I am so happy to be here. So we want to know how did we persuade you to join us here on Small Town Dicks. Oh it was it was a lot of arm twisting. Not the truth.

Well what has always impressed me about Small Town Dicks is the professionalism. First you have your authenticity. You know Dan and Dave, myself we come out of real crime. We've had real experiences. And so the audience, the listeners are getting from Small Town Dicks. What actually happens out there. Not something that's been glamorized. But also you guys don't exploit the cases. You're empathetic to the victims. And this is what I'm all about. And I know that people who know me from

other projects, they will truly see that when they start listening to Small Town Dicks. That's an incredible endorsement. Dan and Dave tell the fine people about some Patreon. Where Paul Holes also joins us on quite a few nuggety nuggets. For just five bucks a month you'll have access to an assortment of bonus episodes, outtakes, listener questions, special series.

All Town Fam you get everything Dave said and your hard earned money goes to support our incredible staff behind the scenes to give you this podcast that we all love. So please join us at patreon.com slash Small Town Dicks.

Hey Small Town Fam, how are you doing? Great I hope. So as we over here at Small Town Dicks prepare for season 11, I wanted to share with you a podcast.

I think you're really going to dig. It's a series called Lords of Soccer, how FIFA stole the beautiful game. It's hosted by veteran foreign correspondent Connor Powell and produced by our own Gary Scott who produces with us on Small Town Dicks.

And maybe you're thinking, well you know it's about sports, I'm not really into sports, but I like to think of it as sports is the frame and true crime and international intrigue along with some shocking history are the picture.

Consider this soccer or a football as the rest of the world calls it is the most popular sport in the world and FIFA is the tiny group of executives that controls it.

So they're buffing along doing whatever they want to do and then in 2015 FIFA's top leaders are hit with a criminal indictment, the most sweeping in international history.

Lords of Soccer digs deep into the investigation that follows this indictment and you will not believe what you hear on this podcast.

Each revelation is more jaw dropping than the last, but don't take my word for it. Here's a little clip from episode one called The Inside Man.

It's a brisk November evening in the year 2011.

An electric scooter rolls slowly across the pink and rose colored marble lobby of the 58th story Trump Tower in downtown Manhattan.

The man on the scooter is Chuck Blazer. He's a rare American on FIFA's executive committee. For nearly 20 years he's traveled the world by private jet, stayed in five star hotels and rubbed elbows with a host of celebrities, sports stars and world leaders.

On this crisp autumn night, Blazer with a head of hair and beard is bushy and white as Santa Claus is making his way to Uncle Jack's, a posh New York steakhouse on the west side.

He's joined by friends, including the woman he's dating, the former soap opera actress, Marylyn Blanks.

Because of his weight, which has ballooned to more than 400 pounds, he relies on a mobility scooter for assistance. Like many FIFA executives, Blazer is known in restaurants around the world for spending thousands of dollars on food, alcohol, and pretty much whatever the hell he wanted.

In New York, Blazer was known as much for his love of strip clubs as he was for his love of Max, his blue and gold pet parrot. Max was regularly seen around town sitting on Blazer's shoulder. On this fateful night, Max the parrot was left upstairs.

In one of Blazer's two, yes, two luxury Trump Tower apartments. Combined, they cost nearly $24,000 a month. One of the apartments was just for his cats, who apparently peed a lot, and so were rewarded with a residence of their own.

You might be wondering, like I did, how this morbidly obese, clearly eccentric, American sports marketing executive from Queens, New York, ended up on soccer's International Governing Council.

You might also ask, how could he forward such luxuries, like two penthouse apartments in downtown Manhattan?

The federal agents, one from the Internal Revenue Service and the other from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have been wondering the same thing.

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