October 10 – A year and a half after his arrest as part of the FIFA corruption scandal, Costa Rica’s Eduardo Li pleaded guilty on Friday to three charges in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, admitting he took hundreds and thousands of dollars in bribes.
The former president of the Costa Rican Football Federation (FEDEFUTBOL) admitted charges relating to corruption and conspiracy, according to AFP. Li told a judge that he had accepted more than $500,000 in bribes from various companies in exchange for television rights to Costa Rican matches leading up to the 2022 World Cup.
In all Li faced more than a dozen charges, U.S. prosecutors saying he used his position as head of Costa Rican football and a FIFA executive committee member (though he was not in that position long enough before his arrest to even attend his first meeting) to receive illegal kickbacks when granting business deals. He was also accused of money laundering and wire fraud.
In court, Li said that he accepted bribes to award contracts for media and marketing rights for matches and for sponsoring team uniforms. “I knew that it was wrong of me to accept such undisclosed payments,” Li said through a Spanish interpreter.
The Costa Rican has been under house arrest in New York since February after he was extradited from Switzerland, where he was originally detained alongside other FIFA officials in that infamous May 2015 raid on the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich. He is one of 42 individuals and entities charged in the U.S. investigation that has rocked FIFA and is the 17th of 24 FIFA representatives to plead guilty.
Each one of Li’s three charges carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, according to AFP, but last month, U.S. prosecutors said those who plead guilty now would receive reduced sentences.
In court on Friday, Li said he negotiated a $500,000 bribe, of which $300,000 he actually received, to award the Miami-based Traffic Group media and marketing rights for 2022 World Cup qualifier matches.
Li said he also agreed to accept a separate $500,000 bribe, $230,000 of which he received from Panama-based intermediaries in exchange for awarding a U.S. company a contract to be the Costa Rican national team’s uniform sponsor.
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