December 07, 2017
A key IRS agent whose 2011 tax investigation led to the government's corruption probe of dozens of FIFA officials and soccer marketing executives testified at trial Thursday that the executives used offshore intermediary companies with U.S. bank accounts to funnel illicit payments to soccer federations and officials.
December 06, 2017
An assistant who worked for former CONMEBOL President Juan Angel Napout testified Wednesday that he had followed instructions from a lawyer at the powerful South American soccer confederation to help remove Napout's computer from his office on the morning after his arrest in December 2015.
December 05, 2017
The former president of the Brazilian soccer federation asked the founder of sports marketing company Traffic Group to check on when he would receive apparent bribe payments related to the sale of marketing rights for certain years of the Copa do Brasil tournament, the Traffic founder testified Tuesday in the ongoing FIFA corruption case in Brooklyn.
November 29, 2017
A former South American soccer executive told jurors he was instructed to pay and keep track of bribe payments to several South American soccer officials, including three defendants currently on trial, while separately, one of the jurors was dismissed for sleeping as the FIFA corruption trial continued Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.
November 27, 2017
The former president of the Colombian soccer federation testified Monday in the FIFA corruption trial that he agreed to accept $1 million in bribes in 2010 as part of a so-called "Group of Six" South American soccer presidents to award marketing rights to future Copa America tournaments in just one of the alleged bribery schemes he described to the jurors.
November 22, 2017
More than two years after U.S. authorities rocked the world of international soccer by unveiling a global corruption investigation into it, the first trial stemming from the investigation kicked off in a federal court in Brooklyn this month, providing a clearer picture of the alleged corruption, while bringing witness intimidation allegations akin to a mob trial. Here, Law360 looks at three highlights from the first two weeks of the trial.
November 21, 2017
The son of the former leader of Ecuador's national soccer organization told jurors at the FIFA corruption trial on Tuesday about laundering his father's kickbacks from a sports marketing company, and choked up empathizing with other ex-soccer officials who are on trial.
November 18, 2017
A Brooklyn federal judge overseeing the FIFA corruption trial held off on Friday on expected testimony from a government witness over allegations he was threatened on the stand by one of the defendants, who is accused of making a throat-slitting gesture after the defendant's attorney said it may force him to move for a mistrial.
November 16, 2017
A former sports media and marketing executive estimated Thursday during cross-examination in the FIFA corruption trial that he and his company had agreed to pay around 30 individuals approximately $160 million in bribes to control South American soccer marketing rights, the revelation of which provided a clearer picture of the scope of alleged corruption in international soccer.
November 15, 2017
Tensions rose in the FIFA corruption trial on Wednesday as prosecutors asked a federal judge to place one of the defendants in jail during the trial after he allegedly made a "slicing motion across his throat" at a government witness who testified that the defendant and other soccer officials agreed to take millions of dollars in bribes.