US-based unit of Spanish media group Imagina fined US$24 million for bribing soccer officials

It was the latest penalty imposed in the sprawling US corruption inquiry into world soccer’s governing body Fifa

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Soccer's governing body Fifa for years had been dogged by allegations of corruption but always escaped major criminal cases. An investigation has yielded more than two dozen guilty pleas and one trial of three former Latin American soccer officials. Photo: Reuters

Published: 4:30am, 11 Jul 2018Updated: 4:54am, 11 Jul 2018

A Florida-based unit of the Spanish sports media group Imagina pleaded guilty to charges of bribing Latin American soccer officials and was ordered to pay more than US$24 million, the latest penalty imposed in the sprawling US investigation of corruption at world soccer’s governing body Fifa.

At a hearing in New York before US District Judge Pamela Chen on Tuesday, US Imagina LLC general counsel Erika Lucas said that beginning around 2008, the company bribed officials of the national soccer federations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).

She said the company paid the bribes to secure media and marketing rights to qualifying matches for the 2014, 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Lucas also said that in 2012, Roger Huguet, a US Imagina executive, entered into an agreement with sports marketing company Traffic Group to split the cost of a bribe to Jeffrey Webb, then president of Concacaf, which governs soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean.

The court was told that a US Imagina executive made a deal with sports marketing company Traffic Group to split the cost of a bribe to Jeffrey Webb (shown), then president of Concacaf. Photo: AP

Lucas entered a guilty plea on behalf of the company to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy.

Chen ordered the company to pay a criminal fine of about US$12.9 million, pay restitution to the soccer federations and CFU totalling about US$6.6 million and to forfeit about US$5.3 million in criminal proceeds.