NEW YORK: The end is in sight of the FIFAGate trial of former South American football federation leaders Jose Maria Marin (Brazil), Manuel Burga (Peru) and Juan Angel Napout (Paraguay).

The ongoing trial, arising from the $200m football rights corruption investigation by the United States Justice Department, is expected to see the prosecution case wrapped up tomorrow/Friday.

Monday should see defence lawyers seek to rebutt the allegations of widespread bribery throughout Latin American football. They are not expected to call many witnesses so a verdict could be delivered next Friday.

The ongoing trial heard evidence from Fabio Tordin, who had been ceo and later consultant to Traffic USA before working from 2011 for Media World, another rights company controlled by Imagina de EspaƱa.

Tordin’s evidence concerned bribes for leaders of the central and north American confederation CONCACAF. These included its then president Jack Warner, his successors Jeffrey Webb and Alfredo Hawit, fellow FIFA executive committee member Rafael Salguero and Ariel Alvarado, former president of the Panama federation and a CONCACAF exco member.

Further evidence was given by Nelson Sanabria, a former assistant to Napout when the latter was president of the South American confederation CONMEBOL.

He referred, during questioning, to Napout’s computer and iPad which had vanished from the CONMEBOL offices after Napout had been detained in Switzerland six months after the FIFAGate scandal exploded in May 2015.

############