It was only a matter of time until the juicy details behind one of the most explosive corruption scandals in sports history would get its own television show. Amazon’s upcoming miniseries El Presidente, which is being produced by none other than Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín and directed by Birdman co-writer Armando Bo, will take viewers into the multimillion bribery and corruption scandal that rocked the world of soccer back in 2015.
The series explores the sports scandal through the story of Sergio Jadue, a small-time Chilean football club president who rose from obscurity to become a key player in a $150 million bribery conspiracy at the hand of the infamous President of the Argentinian Football Association, Julio Grondona. Set all around Latin America, the U.S. and Europe, the series stars How to get Away with Murder‘s Karla Souza, Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal‘s Andrés Parra and Sin Nombre‘s Paulina Gaitán.
The miniseries aims to be a globetrotting mob drama that unearths the reality behind how FIFA became the most profitable non-profit association in history. As Larraín told Variety ahead of premiering the first two episodes at Series Mania, “FIFA became a school for corruption, especially in Latin America where 22 of the 23 soccer bosses were found guilty of corruption. That is something very human that happens when there is too much money and too much control dispersed among very few individuals. This isn’t new either, it’s historical in FIFA. What we do in El Presidente is show what happened here in Latin America and how corruption is part of the structure of the organization.”
Take a look at the teaser trailer below.