FIFA Gate: details of the biggest corruption scandal in football history involving Russia and Qatar

With the Qatar World Cup already contested and after years of investigations and accusations, the corruption plot behind the World Cup awards to Russia and Qatar seems increasingly clear.

Most of the evidence was collected by the United States Department of Justice, which in 2020 published complaints related to the case that broke out in 2015 and exposed the dark management that existed within the Mother House of world football.

On that occasion, for the first time, the payment of bribes by two countries was formally aimed at paying bribes: Russia and Qatar. As revealed by specialized journalist Ken Bensinger, it was Latin American leaders who received millions of dollars to vote for these two nations to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

“Several members of the executive committee were offered and received bribes linked to their votes. For example, Ricardo Teixeira, Nicolás Leoz and Co-Conspirator 1 were offered and received payments in exchange for their votes in favor of Qatar, to host the 2022 World Cup,” the prosecution document states. It is worth remembering that the identity of “co-conspirator 1″ was never revealed, although due to the information in the file it can be deduced that he is Julio Humberto Grondona, deceased president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and former vice-president of FIFA.

Teixeira was president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) between 1989 and 2012 and his name is not new to the cause. In 2017, he was banned for life by FIFA after being found guilty of accepting improper payments from television companies that sought to keep the rights to Conmebol competitions. He remains in Brazil, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

For his part, the Paraguayan Nicolás Leoz was the boss of Conmebol between 1986 and 2013 and died in August 2019. His departure from the South American entity came after he was found guilty of having accepted bribes in the early 2000s from companies that sought to televise tournaments that belonged to the Confederation he presided over. He died in Paraguay last year while under house arrest and fighting extradition to the United States.

“In addition, the defendant Jack Warner was promised and received bribes totaling USD 5 million and Rafael Salguero was promised USD 1 million in exchange for his votes in favor of Russia, to host the 2018 World Cup,” the brief states.

Warner, from Trinidad and Tobago, was vice-president and member of the FIFA Executive Committee, president of CONCACAF and president of the Caribbean Football Union. He could be extradited to the United States. Meanwhile, Salguero, former president of Guatemalan soccer and former member of the FIFA Executive Committee, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in December 2018 before the North American courts that are carrying out the trial.

It is worth remembering that the elections for Russia and Qatar were held in December 2010 and were historic because never before had two seats been chosen at the same time. In addition, since that meeting of the Executive Committee, several European federations, such as the English one, indicated that there had been black money in the votes.

This is the first time that the cause of FIFA Gate points to this type of bribery, since television companies such as Full Play and Torneos, among others, have always been the ones mentioned. But there’s a new episode here as well.

According to The New York Times, the accusations against South Americans are similar to those made by Alejandro Burzaco, a former Argentine television executive who became a prosecution witness after being named as a central figure in the soccer corruption case. He said at the trial of three other officials in New York in 2017 that Leoz, Grondona and Teixeira had been paid to vote for Qatar.

The prosecution has also formally charged two former executives of Century Fox, one of the most important media companies in the world, which is currently part of the Disney conglomerate. Hernán López and Carlos Martínez were in charge of the company’s business in Latin America and in 2017 they had been involved in the trial and are due to appear this Thursday before Brooklyn federal judge Pamela Chen.

FIFA granted Fox the rights to broadcast the 2026 World Cup without an open bidding process.

This block of complaints also includes the former CEO of the Spanish company Imagina and the Argentinian company Full Play, who are also accused of conspiracy to commit crimes.

“The indictments released today reflect the prosecution’s ongoing commitment to root out corruption in the highest levels of international football and in companies committed to the promotion and transmission of sports,” New York prosecutor Richard Donoghue said in a statement. Sports executives “must understand that they will be brought to justice if they use the U.S. financial system for corrupt ends,” he added.

In the context of the FIFA scandal, which broke out in 2015, the US government has accused a total of 45 people and several sports companies of more than 90 crimes and of paying or accepting more than $200 million in bribes.

Of the 45 defendants, five have died. A total of 22 pleaded guilty, and of them only six have been sentenced. A dozen are still in their countries, where they were prosecuted by local courts or are at large while fighting extradition. Only three leaders who pleaded not guilty went to trial. The former Brazilian soccer boss José María Marín and the former head of Conmebol, the Paraguayan Juan Ángel Napout, were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms. Former Peruvian soccer boss Manuel Burga was acquitted.

Russia has also faced accusations of improper bidding behavior. Russian officials told a FIFA panel that investigated their offer that they could not hand over the computers used during the process to a FIFA investigator because they had all been destroyed.

This article was originally published on infobae.com