FIFA, football bodies to get US$200m as victims of corruption
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) declared FIFA and other football bodies to be victims of corrupt former officials and said yesterday they would get more than US$200 million from cash forfeited in a sprawling investigation.
A first amount of $32.2 million will be paid into a ‘World Football Remission Fund’ overseen by the FIFA Foundation charity, federal prosecutors said.
“This announcement is the beginning of the process for returning funds to the victims of the FIFA bribery scandal, and marks the department’s continued commitment to ensuring justice for those victims harmed by this scheme,” the DOJ said in a statement.
FIFA’s charity supports projects in schools, helps the sport recover after natural disasters, develops women’s and girls’ football, and the FIFA Legends programme that uses former players as ambassadors.
“I would like to thank the US authorities for the trust placed in FIFA,” its president, Gianni Infantino, said in a statement, pledging “we will make sure that these funds are used properly and bring tangible benefits for people who really need it”.
FIFA TO CONTROL MONEY
Most of the forfeited money – in a case unsealed in 2015 that led to more than 50 people or corporate entities charged – will now be under FIFA’s control in Zurich, though it never belonged to the world football body.
The forfeited money was typically linked to bribes and kickbacks from broadcasting and sponsor deals for continental competitions in the Americas and national deals for World Cupqualifying games.
More than $150 million was ordered to be forfeited by Jose Hawilla, the Brazilian marketing executive who has since died. His group of agencies had close relationships with South American football body CONMEBOL and North America’s Concacaf.
The remission deal follows more than five years after FIFA claimed tens of millions of dollars in restitution for itself from money held by prosecutors, who secured dozens of guilty pleas from football and marketing executives, mostly in the Americas.
Some are still awaiting sentencing in federal court in Brooklyn, years after admitting charges of financial wrongdoing. Indicted football officials have avoided extradition while remaining in Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago.
The ongoing investigation was unsealed in May 2015 and rocked world football while its leaders met in Zurich and, two days later, re-elected Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.
BLATTER NEVER IMPLICATED
The next week, Blatter announced his plans to resign in the fallout from a case that ultimately removed a generation of leaders from the Americas, who also held senior positions at FIFA.
Blatter was never implicated directly by US prosecutors, though, since September 2015, he has been the subject of criminal proceedings in Switzerland, where federal prosecutors are still running separate though connected investigations.
However, at least $10 million of the restitution FIFA requested was its own money paid out during Blatter’s presidency.
In its 2016 claim, FIFA described the “theft” of payments totalling $10 million it transferred to Concacaf leaders that was acknowledged as bribes to vote for South Africa as the 2010 World Cup hosts.