April 24 – Eduardo Li, the disgraced former president of the Costa Rican Football Association, has been banned for life by FIFA’s ethics committee in the latest sanction to strike at the heart of the organisation’s old guard.
Li is one of 42 individuals and entities charged in the US-led investigation into the biggest corruption scandal in the history of FIFA and was of the original Zurich seven arrested back in May 2015.
Li, who was also a former member of the CONCACAF’s executive committee, pleaded guilty in a US federal court in October to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Prosecutors alleged he and others engaged in schemes involving over $200 million in bribes and kickbacks sought and received for marketing and broadcasting rights.
In court, Li had said he negotiated a $500,000 bribe, of which $300,000 he actually received, to award a Miami-based unit of Brazil’s Traffic Group media and marketing rights for 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
Li also said he had agreed to accept a separate $500,000 bribe, $230,000 of which he received, from Panama-based intermediaries in exchange for awarding a US company a contract to be the Costa Rican national team’s uniform sponsor.
Li, who spent several months detained in Switzerland before being extradited to the United States, had been the head of the Costa Rican federation from 2007 until his arrest in Zurich.
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