KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTING —- A significant question about the validity of the legal status of the sensational FIFAGate case has been raised by the acquittal of a media executive and rights company at the centre of the scandal.

United States District Judge Pamela Chen, who presided over the original saga as it dragged through her court, undertook a major legal U-turn when she granted the appeals of former Fox executive Hernan Lopez and the Argentinian company Full Play.

They had been convicted on charges of bribing senior Latin American football officials responsible for awarding TV contracts. The appeals were granted because of doubts whether United States’ crucial wire fraud legislation applies to foreign business transactions.

Chen’s latest ruling could prove another protracted legal nightmare for FIFA if it should prompt a stream of FIFAGate appeals and even compensation claims to both the US Courts and world football’s governing body.

FIFA had relied heavily on the evidence compiled by US tax and federal investigators in reaching its own verdicts.

Judge Chen issued her new, 55-page judgment based on a US Supreme Court decision in May in a case involving Joseph Percoco, an aide to Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor.

Back in March Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels, was convicted along with Full Play Group SA, on one count each of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy related to media rights to South America’s major club competition, the Copa Libertadores.

Agency role

Full Play had been convicted of two additional counts each of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy related to World Cup qualifiers and friendlies and to the Copa América.

The Supreme Court had overturned Percoco’s wire fraud conspiracy conviction on the grounds that the jury instructions had been too vague.

Chen went into greater detail. She said: “The Supreme Court’s latest wire fraud decisions — especially Percoco — and the absence of precedent applying honest services wire fraud to foreign commercial bribery, requires this court to find that (the statute) does not criminalize the conduct alleged in this case and that therefore the evidence at trial was insufficient to sustain defendants’ convictions under that statute.”

“Defendants’ convictions for money laundering, predicated on their honest services wire fraud convictions, also cannot be sustained.”

Extraditions

A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which had overseen FIFAGate – the so-called “World Cup of corruption” – indicated that it was studying the latest decision.

FIFAGate exploded on world football in May 2015 when seven senior world football executives were detained in Zurich at the request of the United States Department of Justice on a variety of bribery, fraud and money-laundering charges concerning media rights to the World Cup and major Latin American competitions.

Subsequently more than 40 individuals and companies were charged, many of the individuals later being banned from football for life. The scandal brought FIFA to its knees and led to the downfall of the then president Sepp Blatter.

Jail terms

Altogether 14 individuals pleaded guilty to fraud charges and several were jailed in the US. These included Juan Angel Napout, a former president of the South American confederation (CONMEBOL), as well as Jose Maria Marin, a former president of the Brazilian CBD.

US authorities are still trying to obtain the extradition from Trinidad and Tobago of Jack Warner, a former president of the central and north American confederation CONCACAF.

His CONCACAF successor, Jeff Webb, has been on bail on charges he has admitted at his US home in Georgia for the past eight years and is still awaiting his day in court.

Several of those pursued died during the legal process. These included the American CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer, the Paraguayan ex-CONMEBOL president Nicolas Leoz and Argentinian federation boss Julio Grondona.

Grondona, Leoz, Blazer, Napout, Marin and Webb were all highly-placed figures within Blatter’s FIFA. Blatter himself was never charged over FIFAGate issues though he was banned from football by FIFA over other issues.

Almost all l of those found guilty in the FIFAGate scandal were banned from football for life. FIFA, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF have been repaid more than $2m reclaimed amid financial penalties for those convicted.

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