FIFA audit official admits bribery in U.S. federal probe

The sprawling American investigation of bribery and corruption in international soccer has reached into Asia and claimed the first guilty plea from a senior official in the new FIFA leadership.

A member of FIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee, Richard Lai of Guam, was provisionally suspended Friday by the football organization’s ethics committee after admitting taking about $1 million in bribes, including from senior Kuwaiti officials seeking to buy influence among Asian FIFA voters.

Lai, a United States citizen and president of Guam’s soccer federation since 2001, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday.

Lai’s case marks a stunning step forward in the American federal investigation, which had indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 people and marketing agencies linked to soccer in the Americas since 2015.

A Department of Justice document published Friday said, “co-conspirator #2 was a highranking official of FIFA, the Kuwait Football Association (KFA) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).’’ The document did not name the alleged co-conspirators.

The unnamed Kuwaiti official was “ultimately elected to the FIFA Executive Committee,’’ the document said.

The document said “co-conspirator #3’’ was a “high-ranking official of the OCA and an official of the KFA.’’

The FIFA ethics committee typically imposes life bans on officials who have pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court.

The Asian Football Confederation, where Lai is a long-time executive committee member, said it provisionally suspended Richard Lai from football with immediate effect.

Lai admitted to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy in connection with multiple schemes to accept and pay bribes to soccer officials.

The justice department document alleged Lai was approached by the Kuwaiti officials after a bitter Asian election in 2009 to choose a delegate to the FIFA executive committee.