New York: A former Brazil football official Jose Maria Marin gets life ban on corruption charges in the sprawling FIFA bribery scandal, he was sentenced in federal court to four years in prison on August 2018.
Jose Maria Marin, a former president of Brazil’s soccer federation, also was ordered to forfeit $3.3 million and pay a $1.2 million fine in connection with his participation in a scheme to accept bribes in exchange for the media and marketing rights to various soccer tournaments, according to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
The government had asked for 10 years in prison for him. The defense had sought the approximately 13 months he has already served, citing the 86-year-old’s advanced age and poor health.
Before his sentencing in Brooklyn federal court, Marin told the judge that soccer had been his great love but that now it was his downfall.
More than 40 people and entities in the world of global soccer were charged in the U.S. in connection with an investigation that uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. Of those, 24 pleaded guilty. The former president of Peru’s soccer federation, Manuel Burga, was acquitted in December.
“Marin, like his co-conspirators, sold out the sport he was meant to serve to satisfy his own greed,” said U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement. “Today’s sentence shows that for all their power and prestige, the soccer officials who corrupted ‘the beautiful game’ are not above the law.”
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