In 2015, the arrests of FIFA officials at the Zurich Hotel Baur au Lac caused a global stir. But whether the verdicts from the following trials will stand is uncertain following a decision by the US Supreme Court.
The arrest of FIFA officials and sports managers in “Baur au Lac” brought corruption in world football into the headlines.
Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
On a November morning in 2011, American federal police officers intercepted a resident in the foyer of Trump Tower in Manhattan. The FBI agents typically worked on corruption cases in Eastern Europe. But with this action they brought together the sensitive internals of international football.
The resident of Trump Tower was named Chuck Blazer. The FBI discovered that he had used his positions in the International Football Association (FIFA) to enrich himself to the tune of around $20 million. And that he hadn’t paid tax on a single income for years.
The then 66-year-old Blazer, an official who weighed over 200 kilograms and had a thick white beard, had recently been dismissed as general secretary of the North and Central American football association Concacaf. Blazer, who died in 2017, only saw one option during the investigation: he became the main informant for the FBI and the tax investigation.
This led to a spectacular arrest operation at the Zurich Hotel Baur au Lac in May 2015 and brought the conditions behind the scenes of world football into the headlines. The investigation revealed a world in which FIFA leaders had built a system of “various criminal activities including fraud, bribery and money laundering.” This emerges from the 35-page indictment against Blazer.
Chuck Blazer acted as an informant after his arrest by the FBI.
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Charges against more than 40 people
Over time, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn indicted more than forty soccer officials and executives from television networks and production companies from around the world. Among other things, she found evidence that the two World Championships held in Zurich in 2010 were awarded to Russia and Qatar due to bribes.
During the criminal proceedings, numerous other countries provided administrative assistance in the arrest and extradition of the accused, including Switzerland. The allegations led the majority of suspects to confess and accept comparatively lenient sentences.
Only a few of the accused risked lawsuits, such as the South Americans José Maria Marin from Brazil and Juan Ángel Napout from Paraguay. They lost in court in 2017. Napout received the highest sentence of anyone implicated in the scandal. The former president of the South American confederation Conmebol was sentenced to nine years in prison and was only released early from a Florida prison last July. Others escaped the reach of the US justice system because they were able to avoid extradition. Or they died like Blazer, who had not yet been sentenced when he died in 2017.
Juan Ángel Napout was sentenced to nine years in prison – the highest sentence of any defendant in the FIFA corruption trial.
Jorge Adorno / Reuters
Convicted officials appeal
Since last year, however, those convicted have had hope that their sentences will be expunged. In 2023, in another dispute, the Supreme Court in Washington restricted the scope of the law on which part of the indictment in the FIFA corruption scandal was based.
Because of this restriction, the New York judge responsible for the Fifa complex, Pamela K. Chen, annulled two guilty verdicts from the Fifa case last September. Chen’s new interpretation of the files: bribery of non-Americans to the detriment of non-American companies or organizations such as FIFA is not considered a violation of US law. That would at best be a matter for those countries in which the corruption occurred. And where the injured parties are domiciled. In this case, for example, Switzerland and its judiciary.
The Paraguayan Napout, who was arrested in December 2015 during a second operation by the Zurich police, wants to appeal his conviction “so that my file is clean,” as he told the New York Times a few days ago. The newspaper spread a gloomy scenario in a report on Saturday: the entire building that the federal prosecutor had built for her indictments could “collapse.”
The public prosecutor wants to defend himself vigorously
The Brazilian Marin, who was sentenced to four years in prison, also wants to appeal. He was one of the group of officials and sports rights managers who were arrested in “Baur au Lac” in 2015. Both Napout and Marin were acquitted of money laundering charges in their trials. That’s good for them, this offense is not covered by the new dispensation. At least not if it was committed with the help of the American banking system.
José Maria Marin spent two years in prison before the now 91-year-old was released early because of his age.
Jorge Adorno / Reuters
The public prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn wants to defend itself “vigorously” against the requests for exoneration, as a spokesman announced. It is impossible to estimate how great the chances are that the judgments will stand. Former Concacaf President and Fifa Vice President Jack Warner, who has been appealing against his extradition from Trinidad and Tobago to the USA since 2015, can have hopes.
Warner lost on all counts. The final say goes to the Supreme Court of Appeal in London, which has jurisdiction over legal disputes in smaller Commonwealth countries. His verdict is still pending.
Will Jack Warner remain unaffected by the FIFA corruption scandal?
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