Eduardo Li Sánchez (, born 11 November 1958) is a Costa Rican

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

administrator,

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 found ...

executive committee member-elect,

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typese ...

executive committee member, and former

Costa Rican Football Federation The Costa Rican Football Federation ( es, Federación Costarricense de Fútbol, FCRF), also known as FEDEFUTBOL or FEDEFUT, is the official association football governing body in Costa Rica and is in charge of the Costa Rica national football tea ...

(FEDEFUT) president. He co-founded

Puntarenas F.C. Puntarenas Fútbol Club S.A.D. is a Costa Rican football club, currently competing in the Primera División de Costa Rica. The team plays its home games in the Estadio Municipal de Puntarenas Miguel Ángel "Lito" Pérez Treacy nicknamed "La Oll ...

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 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 s ...

, and was arrested in May 2015 in Switzerland to face

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

charges in the US. Li was banned by

FIFA Ethics Committee The FIFA Ethics Committee is one of FIFA's three judicial bodies. It is organized in two chambers, the ''Investigatory Chamber'' and the ''Adjudicatory Chamber''. Its duties are regulated by several official documents, most importantly the ''FIF ...

. 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 Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. 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 The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international association football, football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022 ...

. Li was also charged with

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

and

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to fraud, defraud another, and are Federal crime in the United States, federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the ...

. In 2017 the FIFA suspended him for life.

References

1958 births Living people Costa Rican businesspeople Costa Rican people of Chinese descent FIFA officials {{business-bio-stub