A banker-turned-sports marketing executive who admitted paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to corrupt Latin American soccer officials was spared from prison after serving as the star witness at two FIFA corruption trials.
On Friday, Alejandro Burzaco was instead given credit for the time he spent incarcerated.
Burzaco, who was born and raised in Argentina and once worked as an investment banker for Citigroup Inc. in New York, was charged by US prosecutors in 2015 and later cooperated with them to expose a sprawling fraud at the highest levels of FIFA, soccer’s governing body.
At the first trial, in 2017, special precautions to protect witnesses and jurors didn’t stop one defendant from making a slicing motion across his throat while Burzaco was on the stand, temporarily halting the proceeding when the witness broke down. Burzaco also faced aggressive questioning from defense lawyers who tried to portray him as a liar.
At a second trial this year, Burzaco spent 11 days on the stand, describing how he conspired with two former 21st Century Fox executives to bribe soccer officials to win the lucrative TV rights to the continent’s biggest annual tournament and help land broadcasting rights to the World Cup. He said Rupert Murdoch was so grateful he sent a complimentary note to one of the FIFA bosses. Fox wasn’t charged.
Two of the three soccer officials on trial in 2017 were convicted, and one of the former Fox executives was found guilty in March along with a Uruguayan sports marketing company.
Their trials stemmed from an international crackdown on cheating at FIFA that burst on the scene with a predawn raid at a luxury Zurich hotel in May 2015. The investigation brought down some of the biggest names in the sport, including Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, who was ousted as FIFA’s president after 17 years in the role.
Overall, the government’s investigation netted more than two dozen guilty pleas from people accused of participating in a global, 24-year conspiracy to bribe high-ranking soccer officials with six-figure sums for broadcast and media rights. Four corporate entities also pleaded guilty.
The case is US v. Webb. 15-cr-252, US District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
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A former banker, convicted for his role in the FIFA bribery scandal, will not serve any jail time after cooperating extensively with authorities.
The banker, Andre Stuart Esteves, was charged in November 2019 of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to senior soccer officials across South America.
These bribes were intended to secure the involvement of the bank, BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment firm, in marketing rights for regional soccer tournaments.
Mr. Esteves was convicted with a sentence of three-and-a-half years in prison in October 2021. However, the judge ruled last week that the banker would no longer need to serve any of that sentence due to the information he provided to authorities.
While it is rarely seen in Brazil for someone convicted of a crime to be freed due to cooperation with authorities, the judge in the case noted that Mr. Esteves was an exemplary cooperator and provided substantial evidence in the prosecution of the case.
Prosecutors noted that this evidence was instrumental in exposing the sophisticated network of bribery that had gone unchecked for many years within FIFA.
The judge also concluded that Mr. Esteves had already suffered greatly due to the impact of the conviction on his reputation and financial assets.
The ruling in this case is seen as an important step towards greater transparency in the Brazilian judicial system. It is also a signal of hope for those that cooperate with authorities in prosecution cases in the future.
This case has continued to bring attention to the corruption that has troubled FIFA for many years, and should continue to drive progress in combating such fraud within the soccer organization.
