NEW YORK (AP) — A former ESPN govt underscored how massive cash corrupted soccer, testifying in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that his firm’s bid to televise the World Cup may need been sabotaged by two former Fox executives accused of bribing officers to undermine competing presents.
ESPN’s former president, John Skipper, instructed a New York federal courtroom that ESPN and Univision had collectively bid $900 million — evenly cut up between the 2 TV behemoths — for U.S. broadcasting rights to the 2 most up-to-date World Cups, together with the just lately accomplished one in Qatar.
Despite ESPN’s hefty bid for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, FIFA awarded U.S. English-language rights to Fox, which bid much less.
Government legal professionals say hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes fed a system of clandestine, no-bid contracts that “allowed disloyal soccer executives to live a life of luxury” and in the end allowed Fox to air the matches.
Prosecutors allege the payoffs enabled the previous Fox executives — Heran Lopez and Carlos Martinez — to get confidential information from high-ranking soccer officers, together with these at FIFA. The information helped Fox safe the U.S. English-language rights with a $425 million bid. Telemundo, a division of NBCUniversal’s Comcast Corp., gained U.S. Spanish-language rights for about $600 million.
“I was disappointed,” Skipper mentioned. “In fact, I was angry.”
Skipper mentioned he had assumed the very best bidder would prevail.
The trial is the most recent growth in a tangled corruption scandal that dates again practically a decade and has ensnared greater than three dozen executives and associates.
Skipper’s testimony was meant to corroborate statements by the federal government’s star witness, Alejandro Burzaco, who testified that he and the previous Fox executives conspired to bribe South American soccer officers for TV rights to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest annual event, the Copa Libertadores; and assist land broadcasting rights to the World Cup, the game’s most profitable competitors.
Lawyers for Lopez and Martinez have asserted that the previous executives are being framed, with one protection lawyer accusing Burzaco of masterminding the bribes.
Burzaco, who testified for 11 days, is a former enterprise companion of Lopez and Martinez, and headed an Argentinian advertising and marketing agency. He has cooperated in earlier soccer corruption investigations since being arrested in 2015 in a bribery case. Critics contend he’s cooperating to keep away from jail.
Burzaco has pleaded responsible to racketeering conspiracy and different fees. He testified in 2017 that each one three South Americans on the FIFA govt council took million-dollar bribes to help Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
New York-based Fox Corp., which cut up from a subsidiary of worldwide channels throughout a restructuring in 2019, has denied any involvement within the bribery scandal and isn’t a defendant within the case.
The firm mentioned in a press release that it has cooperated totally.
Skipper mentioned ESPN initially bid $250 million in 2011 for U.S. English-language rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The firm upped that to $450 million in a second spherical. Coupled with Univision’s proposed contribution, the whole got here to $900 million.
The dramatic hike spoke to the sporting occasion’s growing significance, Skipper mentioned.
“We wanted to blow the bid away,” he mentioned.
So far, greater than two dozen folks have pleaded responsible and two folks have been convicted at trial in reference to a U.S.-led investigation into tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes and kickbacks at soccer’s highest ranges. Four company entities have additionally pleaded responsible. Four different firms have been charged however reached agreements with the federal government to keep away from prosecution.
Soccer governing physique, FIFA, has mentioned it was not concerned in any fraud or conspiracies and was a mere bystander because the scandal unfolded.
Nevertheless, the scandal thrust the group below worldwide scrutiny. It has since sought to shine its tarnished picture.
Last month’s World Cup remaining in Qatar, the place Argentina prevailed over France in a dramatic title-clinching shootout, was the most-watched soccer match within the United States, based on tv viewers estimates.
