2015 FIFA Corruption Case
In 2015, United States federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach soccer. Near the end of May 2015, fourteen people were indicted in connection with an investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) into wire fraud, racketeering, and money laundering. The United States Attorney General simultaneously announced the unsealing of the indictments and the prior guilty pleas by four football executives and two corporations. The investigation revolved around collusion between officials of continental football bodies CONMEBOL (South America) and CONCACAF (Caribbean, Central and North America), and sports marketing executives. The sports marketing executives were holders of media and marketing rights for high- ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Baur Au Lac
Baur au Lac is a luxury hotel at Talstrasse, Zürich, Switzerland. The hotel was founded in 1844 by Johannes Baur, and is still owned by the Baur family. It was completely renovated between 2008 and 2010. It is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing organisation. References External links * {{Authority control Hotels in Zürich The Leading Hotels of the World 1844 establishments Hotels established in the 1840s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Chuck Blazer
Charles Gordon Blazer (April 26, 1945 – July 12, 2017) was an American soccer administrator, who held a number of high level positions before becoming a government informant on widespread corruption within organized soccer. He was a FIFA Executive Committee member from 1996 to 2013, the CONCACAF general secretary from 1990 to 2011, and executive vice president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. In 2013, Blazer admitted to conspiring with other FIFA executive committee members to accept bribes in conjunction with the failed bid of Morocco and the successful bid of South Africa to become World Cup hosts in 1998 and 2010, respectively. His admissions came during testimony given at a sealed sentencing proceeding in a New York federal court. Early life Blazer grew up in a middle-class New York City Jewish family in the borough of Queens, where his father ran a stationery and newspaper shop. He attended Forest Hills High School and then took an accountancy degree at New York Universit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Association Football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposition by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45 minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries, it is considered the world's most popular sport. The game of association football is played in accordance with the Laws of the Game, a set of rules that has been in effect since 1863 with the International Football Association Board (IFAB) maintaining them since 1886. The game is played with a football that is in circumference. The two teams compete to get the ball into the other team's goal (between the posts and under t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was founded in 1904 to oversee international competition among the national associations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, its membership now comprises 211 national associations. These national associations must each also be members of one of the six regional confederations into which the world is divided: CAF (Africa), AFC (Asia and Australia), UEFA (Europe), CONCACAF (North & Central America and the Caribbean), OFC (Oceania) and CONMEBOL (South America). FIFA outlines a number of objectives in the organizational Statutes, including growing association football internationally, providing efforts to ensure it is accessible to everyone, and advocating for ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
United States Attorney
United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal criminal prosecutor in their judicial district and represents the U.S. federal government in civil litigation in federal and state court within their geographic jurisdiction. U.S. attorneys must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, after which they serve four-year terms. Currently, there are 93 U.S. attorneys in 94 district offices located throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. One U.S. attorney is assigned to each of the judicial districts, with the exception of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, where a single U.S. attorney serves both districts. Each U.S. attorney is the chief federal law enforcement officer within a specified jurisdiction, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Traffic Sports USA
Traffic Sports USA, based in Miami, is a soccer event management company in the North American, Central American and Caribbean region. Operation A division of Traffic Group, Traffic Sports USA has been responsible for organizing and/or commercializing many of the international soccer events in the region including the vast majority of CONCACAF’s FIFA World Cup Qualifying matches, five of the last six CONCACAF Gold Cups, the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the Under-17 CONCACAF Regional Championship, the Central American UNCAF Nations Cup, the Central American UNCAF Club Champions Cup, and hundreds of friendly matches. Formerly known as Inter Forever Sports, Traffic Sports USA was established over 15 years ago. Traffic Sports of Brazil were awarded the commercial partnership rights to the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup and the 2013, 2014 and 2015 CONCACAF Champions League tournaments. Bribery allegations Traffic Sports was identified in the 2015 FIFA corruption case In 2015, United ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Aaron Davidson
Aaron Davidson (born 1970/1971) is an American lawyer, businessman, and convicted fraudster. Davidson is the former chairman of the board of governors of the North American Soccer League, and former president of Traffic Sports USA. The Brazilian José Hawilla, owner and founder of Traffic Group, appointed Davidson to be the head of his company's North American headquarters in 2003. His job was to pay millions of dollars in bribes to decision makers, following their South American operating model, who then gave to Traffic Group marketing rights to sport events. For similar reasons, Enrique Sanz de Santamaría, did the same, thus after his unveiling Davidson could not avoid his revelation on May 6, 2015. Davidson was one of 14 suspects indicted and detained in the 2015 FIFA corruption case. He was banned by the FIFA Ethics Committee. In May 2015, Davidson pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court and was released on $5 million bond. Subsequently, in October 2016, Davidson plea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Eduardo Li
Eduardo Li Sánchez (, born 11 November 1958) is a Costa Rican football administrator, FIFA executive committee member-elect, CONCACAF executive committee member, and former Costa Rican Football Federation (FEDEFUT) president. He co-founded Puntarenas F.C. with Adrián Castro Velásquez in June 2004. His paternal Chinese grandfather immigrated to Costa Rica in 1920. Li is involved in the 2015 FIFA corruption case, and was arrested in May 2015 in Switzerland to face corruption charges in the US. Li was banned by FIFA Ethics Committee. On 18 December 2015, he was extradited to the United States. In October 2016 Li pleaded guilty to three charges in the Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York. He admitted to have accepted more than $500,000 in bribes from different companies for television rights to Costa Rican football games for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Li was also charged with money laundering and wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jeffrey Webb (football Executive)
Jeffrey D. Webb (born 24 September 1964) is the former president of CONCACAF, Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA), and FIFA vice president. Webb was arrested for corruption charges on 27 May 2015 by Swiss police acting at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He pleaded guilty in November 2015. In May 2015, he was banned by FIFA Ethics Committee. Career Webb was educated at King High School and Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, Florida, in the United States. His career in football spans almost three decades. He was appointed as President of the Cayman Islands Football Association in 1991. Webb was a Business Development Manager at Western Union agent belonging to Fidelity Bank (Cayman) Limited, a subsidiary of Fidelity Bank & Trust International Limited, which is involved in retail banking, investment banking, corporate finance and asset management. Outside of banking, Webb co-owns a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sergio Jadue
Sergio Elías Jadue Jadue ( La Calera, 26 April 1979) is the former president of the National Association of Professional Football of Chile (ANFP) and second vice president of the Conmebol. He pleaded guilty on the 2015 FIFA corruption case. In May 2016, Jadue was banned for life by the FIFA Ethics Committee. Biography He was born as Sergio Cortés Jadue in the commune of La Calera in 1979. He studied in the Rafael Ariztía Institute of Quillota, and finished his high school in the Colegio Paideia. Then, he studied in three private universities; Adolfo Ibáñez, Del Mar and De Las Américas, and he completed pregraduate studies in Law but never got the Law degree. He adopted his matriname as first surname. In 2007, he assumed as president of the Unión La Calera Corporation, and some months later he replaced Daniel Cortez in the club's Board. In June 2009 he was appointed President of the Board of Unión La Calera FC, after the resignation of Jorge Fuenzalida. In his managem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
José Margulies
José Lázaro Margulies (born 12 August 1939), is a Brazilian businessman who was convicted of organized crime, money laundering and fraud charges relating to the 2015 FIFA corruption case. Early life José Margulies was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and immigrated to Brazil at a young age, where he worked for more than twenty years managing sales and marketing rights related to sports competitions. FIFA's fraud case In May 2015, Margulies was one of the FIFA executives accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI of various corruption offenses during the 2015 FIFA corruption case, which led to the arrest of executives by Swiss police at the Baur au Lac, Hotel Baur au Lac in Zürich. On June 2, 2015, Interpol issued an arrest warrant against Margulies and other FIFA businessmen and executives involved in the FIFA's corruption case who had fled justice. In November 2015, Margulies was convicted of organized crime, money laundering and fraud. He agreed to forfeit more ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alfredo Hawit
Alfredo Hawit Banegas (born 8 October 1951) is a Honduran lawyer and former footballer. He is the head of the National Autonomous Federation of Football of Honduras and was made the interim head of CONCACAF on 4 June 2011. Club career As a player, he played professional football for Honduran club sides Progreso, Club Deportivo Olimpia and F.C. Motagua. He scored 11 goals for them altogether. He is one of only few Honduran players who made his debut for a senior side, aged only 15. Football Federation Career Hawit, having seen Jack Warner's reign as CONCACAF President last twenty one years, proposed that the CONCACAF president should be able to serve only one four year-term at a time and for the Caribbean Football Union, UNCAF and North American Football Union to nominate the president on a rotary basis. He was an interim president of CONCACAF. After the arrest of Jeffrey Webb on 27 May 2015, Hawit was made president of CONCACAF. Hawit himself was then arrested on corruption ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |