Trial starts today -- jury was seated last week: https://www.courthousenews.com/new-york-jury-seated-fifa-corruption-trial/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/90min...l-to-kick-off-in-new-york-20171113-story.html Will be interesting to see what comes out of it....
Meanwhile Costas Takkas got 15 months' prison and ordered to pay $3 million in restitution. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/p...entenced-15-months-prison-laundering-millions
First day in the court -- opening statements. Not much except to read the defense's position. Basically they are all saying that yes corruption existed, but they were innocent bystanders. I like this one by Marin's attorney: Charles Stillman, Marin’s attorney, likened the conspiracy to a match of football among children, arguing his client had remained out of the game while other more senior officials dictated the play. “Marin was not one of them,” he told the jury. “He’s kind of like the youngster standing off to the side, picking up daisies.” https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/13/fifa-corruption-trial-new-york-marin-napot-murga
Fifa official took bribes to back Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid, court hears https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/14/fifa-bribery-corruption-trial-qatar-2022-world-cup
This trial is going to be real fun, but not for some. A former Argentine football official committed suicide Tuesday, the same day he was accused of bribe-taking in the FIFA corruption trial that opened in New York this week, Argentine media reported https://sports.yahoo.com/former-arg...l-commits-suicide-reports-080837609--sow.html
That is some interesting reading....what will be important IMHO is if the prosecution has records of those financial transactions to back up the testimony. Obviously the defense team will be questioning the veracity and reliability of Burzaco. But that statement about bribes for voting for Qatar is what many of us have been looking for. It should be rattling quite a few people in FIFA and I hope that the Swiss and US authorities (now that they know what to look for) have found what they need to prove it.
He's a bit late to the game for that. Depends on how confident the FBI and Swiss authorities are on being able to nail him without his help.
Some are questioning whether it was suicide or not. Burzaco says people in Argentina are looking to kill him and Burga supposedly made a 'slit your throat' motion at him. (Which his lawyer is saying was him just itching his throat.) The judge is reviewing video of the courtroom -- at stake is whether Burga can continue to go home under house arrest or would be put in jail. Besides, of course the obvious threat on Burzaco. https://nypost.com/2017/11/15/death-threats-suicide-headline-another-eventful-day-in-fifa-trial/ And yes, the NY Post is not the NY Times...
Guys, if Burzaco happens to mention me, just want to state for the record i won't be killing myself...
I wish I could watch this on TV. Any recommendations for best sources, Spanish and English, for tracking this case? I've resorted to googling 'Fifa trial,' to see the latest. There's got to be someone at the trial tweeting events or someone blogging about this, no?
(^That's what I'm doing too.) The extradition from Paraguay of Nicolas Leoz has been approved - but will be appealed. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...dition-of-ex-conmebol-president-idUSKBN1DG2IO
Agreed and me too...though I'm googling "Fifa New york trial" though I've begun recently to add another one - "Blatter FBI". This trial, I would assume, is going to get a little more attention given the sensationalism of having death threats (allegedly) being thrown around and one person already dead. Though new news will happen until the next prosecution witness takes the stand or the judge rules on the alleged threat or the defense lands a solid blow to Burzaco's credibility.
3 FBI agents returning to the US today with 10 boxes of documents from Blatter. I've heard they also identified bank accounts in some countries in the name of already deceased people.
According to Burzaco, even the great golden boy Messi, got his share on the bribe money. 200.000 dollars for each friendly match played. Other players (not named) also got their parts. http://www.futbolred.com/seleccione...ce-que-le-pago-a-messi-por-amistosos+16872465
Classic misdirection. Did Messi know it was funded by bribes? The issue here isn't players taking payments to play it's guys like Blatter who were such patriarchs they thiufmght it un-loyal for people to whistle blow. They lost all sense of what was right and moral and corrupted the game to its core.
I don't think that they can get away with it, with such an easy explanation. Besides everybody, some more or some less, must pay taxes according to their income. And if they received this money as payment, they sure must pay their respectful taxes for it. Many of those officials indicted, have said that all they did was receive the money they were handed by their Confed hierarchy, but never knew from where it was coming, but didn't worry and simply received it, without even asking. In cases like this, for many they believe that it is better to not know much.
Taxes always need to get paid for money received/earned according to the laws of the land. BUT let's not compare Messi getting paid to play with the three people on trial. All three are accused of taking bribes to vote for Qatar as the host country and of accepting money for other bribes that were channeled through shell companies. This is not a case of people being given bonuses by their employers for having a good year.
Where did Bursaco, or even I say that Messi was involved with the Qatar vote ?. And btw, this FIFA gate scandal, has nothing to do with the Qatar bid vote issues. Is more about money laundering and corruption. Don't change the goal posts or attempt to deviate what is being debated to something else All he said regarding Messi, which is what I wrote in my OP, is that Messi was being involved by being paid huge amounts for playing friendlies (if they were legal payments or bribes, the judges will sure find out after, if they believe it's important for the case).
I never said you said Messi was involved in the Qatar vote. What I was saying was that by bringing Messi's name into a thread talking about FIFA corruption in general and a time when we are talking about a specific trial was inappropriate. You aren't reading the articles about the trial very carefully: "All three men, Mr. Burzaco claimed this week, received $1 million bribes in exchange for their votes to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar."So...while many saw the beginning of this trial and corruption scheme as just a bunch of South and North Americans exchanging bribes for broadcasting rights, and money laundering -- the nub of the basic issue has been exposed. So you are wrong relative to what the "FIFA gate scandal" is now. Nor are you reading the posts from this thread very closely:
What do you mean diferent trial ? It's Burzaco the one we are talking about, whom is preciselly the one guy who is serving as witness for that trial (trying to save his butt, as he was also indicted here, as well), when he involved Messi, among lots of other people in lots of diferent situations, that affect others involved in this trials, where he was directly involved in, which not necesarily are connected all, ones to the others (that's for the jury and investigators to find out). And everything related to Qatar in this particular trial, initially was really not under the scope of this trial (but now, specially after Burzaco's declarations in it, might change)
From the judge relative to Burga's throat slitting gesture accusation from Burzaco: "There's probable cause to believe he attempted to tamper with the witness." As a result she has put additional restrictions on his bail terms. Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/newswire...ess-fifa-bribery-trial-liar-article-1.3638953 Will be interesting to see where all of this goes... In a different article Burga's lawyer calls Burzaco a serial liar. But they also mention: "More cooperators are expected to testify for the governmant in federal court in Brooklyn in the coming weeks." http://www.nydailynews.com/newswire...ess-fifa-bribery-trial-liar-article-1.3638953 This is all going to only get more interesting.
Nothing very incendiary in today's updates -- a couple of key quotes: The desire by FIFA to characterize the trial as dealing with officials long banished from world soccer is made harder when officials currently influential in the game are mentioned in court. FIFA’s current finance committee chairman, Alejandro Dominguez, was referred to during the trial on Wednesday as “not a very successful businessman [who] will probably request” a bribe.......... Napout passed on to Burzaco a request from Cartes’ [who is the current president of Paraguay] private office to buy eight tickets for Argentina’s game against Iran at the 2014 World Cup. Around that time, Napout also noted CONMEBOL had been in a legal case with a businessman and that Cartes “resolved the entire trial and did it all because of me.” Those quotes and more (even on the Qatar vote) - can be found at: https://nypost.com/2017/11/20/fifa-corruption-trial-reveals-secret-bribes-and-death-threats/ What we are seeing is less new news and more substantiation of existing charges - i.e. Whatsapp communications between Napout and Burzaco to backup Burzaco's testimony.