Rampant Corruption 

A U.S. district judge sentenced former Brazilian soccer federation president José Maria Marin to four years in prison. Marin also has to pay $3.3 million in forfeiture and a fine of $1.2 million.

The U.S. district court in Brooklyn convicted Marin of conspiratorial racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering on Aug. 22. More specifically, he accepted millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for media and marketing rights to soccer tournaments.

Marin was first arrested in 2015. Until then, Marin was the former head of the Brazilian soccer federation, Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (CBF). He was also a member of various FIFA standing committees and a representative of CONMEBOL, the confederation responsible for soccer in South America.

“Marin, like his co-conspirators, sold out the sport he was meant to serve to satisfy his own greed,” stated United States Attorney Richard Donoghue. “Now he has been brought to justice and punished for his criminal conduct. Today’s sentence shows that for all their power and prestige, the soccer officials who corrupted ‘the beautiful game’ are not above the law.”

Donoghue expressed his appreciation to governments around the world, particularly the governments of Switzerland, Brazil and Paraguay for their significant assistance in this case. He also thanked the Office of International Affairs and the Organized Crime and Gang Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in Washington D.C., for their assistance in this prosecution.

Marin and the Corruption of the Enterprise

Evidence presented at the trial indicated that Marin and others engaged in a conspiracy to corrupt the FIFA enterprise through racketeering. Marin and his co-conspirators corrupted the FIFA enterprise by offering and receiving tens of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, paid by sports marketing companies to soccer officials.

FIFA and its six continental confederations, together with affiliated regional federations, national member associations and sports marketing companies, constitute an enterprise of legal entities. The purpose of the entities is to regulate and promote the sport of soccer worldwide. The FIFA enterprise often financed its efforts by selling multi-year media and marketing contracts covering multiple editions of tournaments.

Marin accepted, or agreed to accept, millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for the media and marketing rights to: (1) multiple editions of the CONMEBOL-sponsored Copa América soccer tournament played periodically by South American national teams, including the Copa América Centenario, a special edition of the tournament played in the United States in 2016; (2) multiple editions of the CONMEBOL-sponsored Copa Libertadores soccer tournament played annually by South American club teams and (3) multiple editions of the Copa do Brasil, a soccer tournament sponsored by the CBF for Brazilian soccer clubs.