After Indicting 14 Soccer Officials, U.S. Vows to End Graft in FIFA - NYTimes.com

"Others were more straightforward. When FIFA was considering which country would host the 2006 World Cup, Mr. Warner sent a relative to a Paris hotel room to collect a briefcase filled with cash in $10,000 stacks from a South African bid-committee official, according to the indictment.

In 2011, an associate running for FIFA president wired about $360,000 to an account controlled by Mr. Warner, who, in turn, arranged for the associate to give a stump speech to Caribbean soccer officials at a Hyatt Regency in Trinidad. When the speech concluded, Mr. Warner told the officials that a “gift” awaited them in a Hyatt conference room. The gift: envelopes containing $40,000 in cash from the associate, one for each of the member organizations."

"Despite the broad nature of the charges, the case itself arrived at the Justice Department as something of a surprise. The four-year F.B.I. investigation grew out of an unrelated inquiry into aspects of Russian organized crime by the Eurasian Joint Organized Crime Task Force in the F.B.I.’s New York office, according to people with knowledge of the case’s origins. Authorities soon realized the potential scope of an investigation into the sporting world’s most powerful, secretive organization."

read the story by STEPHANIE CLIFFORD and MATT APUZZO

 
After Indicting 14 Soccer Officials, U.S. Vows to End Graft in FIFA - NYTimes.com: