Witness says media giant paid bribe for world Cup broadcast

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NEW YORK — Media giants Globo and Televisa teamed with a marketing firm to make a $15 million bribe to a FIFA executive to help them secure lucrative broadcasting rights to the World Cup in 2026 and 2030, the firm's former CEO testified on Wednesday.
Alejandro Burzaco, a key witness at a U.S. bribery trial, testified that the deal was struck with longtime FIFA finance committee chairman Julio Grondona at a 2013 meeting in Zurich, Switzerland.
“Were you and your partners able to get those rights?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Nitze asked at the trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
“Yes, sir,” Burzaco responded.
In wide-ranging testimony that began Tuesday, Burzaco also has implicated Fox Sports in a separate bribery scheme. Fox and Globo have denied any wrongdoing, while Televisa has denied comment.
Burzaco is on the witness stand under a plea agreement against three former South American soccer officials accused of taking bribes in a sprawling corruption investigation of FIFA, the sport's governing body. Jose Maria Marin, Manuel Burga and Juan Angel Napout have pleaded not guilty to charges they took part in a 24-year scheme involving at least $150 million in bribes that secured broadcasting and hosting rights for soccer tournaments around the globe.
More than 40 other officials and business executives been charged. Many, including Burzaco, have pleaded guilty in hopes of receiving reduced sentences.
In earlier testimony, Burzaco told the jury how Grondona claimed in several conversations that he was owed millions of dollars for his 2010 vote as a member of FIFA's executive committee that helped Qatar land soccer's most prestigious tournament.
The account appeared to back up persistent suspicions that the Qatar vote was rigged and that the influence of Grondona, the senior vice president at FIFA and head of the Argentinian football association until his death in 2014, was for sale.
Burzaco also seemed to confirm long-held allegations that FIFA bidding rules were broken by a vote-trading pact between Qatar's bid for 2022 and the joint Spain-Portugal bid for 2018 hosting rights that Russia eventually won.

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