Fifa Audit And Compliance Committee Member Pleads Guilty To Corruption Charges

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/fifa-audit-and-compliance-committee-member-pleads-guilty-corruption-charges

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 27, 2017

Fifa Audit And Compliance Committee Member Pleads Guilty To Corruption Charges

Defendant Accepted and Facilitated Bribes Within the Asian Football Confederation

Earlier today, Richard K. Lai, a United States citizen, pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with two counts of wire fraud conspiracy in connection with his participation in multiple schemes to accept and pay bribes to soccer officials. Lai also pleaded guilty to one count of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts and agreed to pay more than $1.1 million in forfeiture and penalties. The plea was entered before United States District Judge Pamela K. Chen at federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York.
(snip)

As alleged in the criminal information to which he pleaded guilty, Lai, a resident of the U.S. territory of Guam, has served as the president of the Guam Football Association (GFA) since 2001. In that capacity, Lai had a vote in FIFA presidential elections. Lai has also served at various times as a member and chair of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Finance Committee and a member of the AFC Executive Committee, and is currently a member of the AFC Marketing Committee and the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee.

As also set forth in the information, Lai pleaded guilty to a scheme in which he received $100,000 in bribes in 2011 from an official of the AFC who was then running for the FIFA presidency, in exchange for Lai’s vote and support in the then-upcoming FIFA presidential election.

As further described in the information, Lai also pleaded guilty to a scheme in which he received over $850,000 in bribes between 2009 and 2014 from a faction of soccer officials in the AFC region. Lai received those bribes in exchange for using his influence as a soccer official to advance the interests of the faction that bribed him, including by helping officials in that faction identify other officials in the AFC to whom they should offer bribes. The goal of this scheme was for the faction to gain control of the AFC and influence FIFA.
(snip)

[malaise]

1. Corruption in sports is breath-taking

and the athletes are the least of the problem