Former federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, the United States, have accused former FIFA officials of receiving bribes to vote for Russia and Qatar in the race to host the 2018 and 2020 World Cups, in an unprecedented procedure, because it is the first time that government judicial authorities have been issued Corruption charges related to these two events.
And if doubts have been held for many years about the conditions for granting the right to host the Mondiales 2018 and 2022, it is the first time that a country’s justice system has confirmed that votes that favor Russia and Qatar have been marred by irregularities.
In the open indictment issued yesterday by the Brooklyn Public Prosecutor, John Donohue, the details of the corruption surrounding the 2010 vote in Zurich that gave Russia the hosting of the 2018 World Cup and Qatar to host the 2022 edition were addressed.
The indictment revealed that former Brazilian FIFA member Ricardo Teixeira and the late Paraguayan official Nicholas Liuz, both of whom were members of the FIFA Executive Committee that voted to award the 2018 finals to Russia and 2022 to Qatar, received bribes in exchange for a vote for Qatar.
In addition, former Trinidad and Tobago Confederate President Jacques Warner “promised and received” a sum totaling $ 5 million in bribes to vote for Russia, while Guatemala’s Rafael Salgiro was promised $ 1 million to vote also for Russia.
Warner was previously accused of selling his vote to South Africa in the 2010 World Cup vote, and in 2019 he was sentenced in absentia to pay $ 79 million in damages to CONCACAF.
For his part, Salgiro pleaded guilty in 2016 to several counts of corruption, and was suspended by FIFA, while Warner, who faces charges from the US judiciary, is struggling to prevent his country from extraditing him to the United States.