FIFA audit official admits bribery in US federal probe
MACOLIN, Switzerland — The sprawling American investigation of bribery and corruption in international soccer has reached into Asia and claimed the first guilty plea from a senior official in the new FIFA leadership.
A member of FIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee, Richard Lai of Guam, was provisionally suspended Friday by the football organization’s ethics committee after admitting taking about $1 million in bribes, including from senior Kuwaiti officials seeking to buy influence among Asian FIFA voters.
Lai, a United States citizen and president of Guam’s soccer federation since 2001, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday.
Lai’s case marks a stunning step forward in the American federal investigation, which had indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 people and marketing agencies linked to soccer in the Americas since 2015.