⚖️ FIFA corruption case: 14 charged over $150M in alleged bribes

Scoreboard, 27 May 2015: the US Justice Department says 14 defendants, a 24-year scheme and well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks for the media and marketing rights to soccer tournaments. Those are allegations, and the department's own release says the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. What followed is on record: pleas, forfeitures, a trial and a ban for the man who ran the sport.

27 May 2015: the Zurich raid

The Justice Department said a 47-count indictment was unsealed that morning in federal court in Brooklyn, charging 14 defendants with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies. Swiss authorities arrested seven of them in Zurich at the request of the United States, the department said, as FIFA's leaders gathered for their annual meeting. The department also unsealed the guilty pleas of four individuals and two companies, among them Chuck Blazer, the long-serving former general secretary of CONCACAF (the North and Central American soccer body).

Two scoreboards, one direction. The Justice Department put the alleged bribes and kickbacks at well over $150 million. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice, quoted by The Guardian, described payments totalling more than $100m to officials from sports media and promotion firms.

Blatter was not among those arrested. FIFA spokesman Walter de Gregorio denied that Blatter was in any way involved with either investigation, The Guardian reported. The New York Times reported that Blatter, who was not charged in the case, won re-election that Friday.

How a tax case became the World Cup of fraud

The New York Times reported that Blazer lived in two apartments at Trump Tower in Manhattan and did not file personal income tax returns. An agent from the US tax agency opened a criminal investigation in August 2011, while FBI agents were working a separate lead, and the two teams joined forces in December 2011. The Guardian reported that Blazer, facing a 20-year sentence on the racketeering charge alone, agreed to plead guilty to 10 counts. The Times reported that he did so secretly in 2013.

The family business of one defendant supplied the comedy. The Guardian reported that Daryan Warner, son of former CONCACAF president Jack Warner, flew cash to the US and made deposits of €7,000 each, sized to stay under the $10,000 limit above which banks demand identification. When a teller asked for his driving licence, the Guardian wrote, he asked for €500 back; he had seemingly not factored in the exchange rate. The Guardian reported that Daryan and his brother Daryll have both pleaded guilty, and that the cash handling involved $600,000 from alleged bribes. It added that the link to their father's alleged involvement remained to be proved.

Jack Warner denies it. In a statement quoted by The Guardian he said: "I reiterate that I am innocent of any charges." The New York Times reported that prosecutors say he helped steer the 2010 World Cup to South Africa as part of a $10 million bribery scheme, and that he has denied the allegations.

3 December 2015: the scoreboard doubles

The Justice Department announced a 92-count superseding indictment charging an additional 16 defendants, for 27 in all, and alleged well over $200 million in bribes and kickbacks. It said the total charged had reached 41, that 12 individuals and two sports marketing companies had been convicted, and that the convicted defendants had agreed to pay more than $190 million in forfeiture. More than $100 million had been restrained, it said, and asset-restraint requests had gone to 13 countries. Guilty pleas by eight defendants, including Jeffrey Webb, Alejandro Burzaco and José Margulies, were announced the same day.

The forfeiture ledger

According to court filings and facts presented at the plea hearings, as the Justice Department described them, the pleas read like invoices. Hawit also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice after the 2015 indictment, for advising a co-conspirator to create sham contracts to mask bribes already paid. Li, the department said, agreed to accept a $500,000 bribe over a uniform-sponsor contract, received about $230,000 in cash and was arrested before the balance arrived. It also said he diverted over $90,000 that FIFA sent for the 2014 Under 17 Women's World Cup, using bogus invoices.

Costas Takkas pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy on 24 May 2017. The Justice Department said Webb accepted a $3 million bribe and admitted it in his plea hearing. Half, $1.5 million, was routed through front companies and accounts controlled by Takkas, and the other marketing company paid about $500,000 of its share through a sham transaction involving a false invoice.

22 December 2017: the trial verdicts

The New York Times reported that a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Napout, accused of accepting $10.5 million in bribes since 2010, and Marin, accused of accepting $6.55 million. Marin was found guilty on six counts and not guilty on one. Napout was found guilty on three counts and not guilty on two money laundering conspiracy counts. The jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the single count against Manuel Burga of Peru. Defense lawyers argued there was little documentary evidence of money changing hands, the Times reported, and Judge Pamela K. Chen ordered both men into custody.

"FIFA strongly supports and encourages the U.S. authorities' efforts to hold accountable those individuals who abused their positions and corrupted international football for their own personal benefit."

FIFA statement, quoted by The New York Times, 22 December 2017

FIFA also said it would take all necessary steps to seek restitution and recover any losses. Nice pivot for an organization whose officials were the defendants.

The Blatter column

Blatter was never the headline defendant in Brooklyn. FIFA announced on 2 June 2015 that he would lay down his mandate at an extraordinary elective Congress. On 24 September 2015 the Swiss Attorney General's office opened criminal proceedings against him on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and, alternatively, misappropriation. It cited a 2005 contract with the Caribbean Football Union under Warner and a CHF 2 million payment to Platini. The office stressed that the presumption of innocence applies.

The ban came from football's own court. Reuters reported on 21 December 2015 that FIFA's independent Ethics Committee banned Blatter and Platini for eight years and fined them over a 2 million Swiss franc payment made in 2011. BBC Sport reported on 24 February 2016 that FIFA's appeals committee upheld the bans but cut them to six years. Both men deny wrongdoing, BBC Sport reported, and say the payment honored a verbal agreement made in 1998. Blatter said he was "very disappointed" in the appeal committee.

FIFA said on 24 March 2021 that its Ethics Committee found Blatter and Jérôme Valcke guilty of violating the FIFA Code of Ethics over bonus payments. It imposed bans of six years and eight months and fines of CHF 1,000,000 each, to start when the earlier bans expire. The documents read carry no response from Blatter to that decision. In 2013, after an earlier ethics report, he had a different line:

"I also note with satisfaction that this report confirms that 'President Blatter's conduct could not be classified in any way as misconduct with regard to any ethics rules'."

Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA statement, 30 April 2013

MrMuscles keeps the final tally to the documents read: a 24-year scheme alleged, a long run of pleas and forfeitures, two jury convictions and a president banned by his own organization. Later sentences and rulings are not in those documents.