Excerpts from the indictment accusing certain FIFA officials and business executives of corruption in organising international football over two decades. The full text of the indictment runs to 161 pages but does not name the South African "co-conspirators".
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South African co-conspirators
59. At various times relevant to the Indictment, Co Conspirator #15 was a high-ranking official of the 2006 South Africa World Cup bid committee and the 2010 South Africa World Cup bid committee and local organizing committee.
60. At various times relevant to the Indictment, Co Conspirator #16 was a high-ranking official of the 2006 South Africa World Cup bid committee and the 2010 South Africa World Cup bid committee and local organizing committee.
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2010 FIFA World Cup Vote Scheme
185. In or about 2004, the FIFA executive committee considered bids from Morocco, South Africa and Egypt, as well as other nations that withdrew before the vote, to host the 2010 World Cup.
186. Previously, the defendant JACK WARNER [a former FIFA vice president and executive committee member] and his family had cultivated ties with South African soccer officials in connection with and subsequent to a failed bid by South Africa to host the 2006 World Cup. In the early 2000s, Co Conspirator #14, a member of WARNER's family, had used WARNER's contacts in South Africa to organize friendly matches for CONCACAF [the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football] teams to play in South Africa. At one point, WARNER also directed Co-Conspirator #14 to fly to Paris, France and accept a briefcase containing bundles of U.S. currency in $10,000 stacks in a hotel room from Co-Conspirator #15, a high ranking South African bid committee official. Hours after arriving in Paris, Co-Conspirator #14 boarded a return flight and carried the briefcase back to Trinidad and Tobago, where Co Conspirator #14 provided it to WARNER.
187. In the months before the selection of the host nation for the 2010 World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in May 2004, the defendant JACK WARNER and Co-Conspirator #1 traveled to Morocco as they had done in 1992, in advance of the voting for the 1998 World Cup host. While in Morocco during the 2004 trip, a representative of the Moroccan bid committee offered to pay $1 million to WARNER in exchange for his agreement to cast his secret ballot on the FIFA executive committee for Morocco to host the 2010 World Cup.
188. Subsequently, Co-Conspirator #1 learned from the defendant JACK WARNER that high-ranking officials of FIFA, the South African government, and the South African bid committee, including Co-Conspirator #16, were prepared to arrange for the government of South Africa to pay $10 million to CFU [the Caribbean Football Union, of which Warner has also been president] to "support the African diaspora." Co-Conspirator #1 understood the offer to be in exchange for the agreement of WARNER, Co-Conspirator #1, and Co-Conspirator #17 to all vote for South Africa, rather than Morocco, to host the 2010 World Cup. At the time, Co-Conspirator #17, like WARNER and Co-Conspirator #1, was a FIFA executive committee member. WARNER indicated that he had accepted the offer and told Co-Conspirator #1 that he would give a $1 million portion of the $10 million payment to Co Conspirator #1.
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189. In FIFA's executive committee vote held on May 15, 2004, South Africa was selected over Morocco and Egypt to host the 2010 World Cup. The defendant JACK WARNER, Co Conspirator #1, and Co-Conspirator #17 indicated that they voted for South Africa.
190. In the months and years after the vote, Co Conspirator #1 periodically asked WARNER about the status of the $10 million payment.
191. At one point, Co-Conspirator #1 learned that the South Africans were unable to arrange for the payment to be made directly from government funds. Arrangements were thereafter made with FIFA officials to instead have the $10 million sent from FIFA - using funds that would otherwise have gone from FIFA to South Africa to support the World Cup - to CFU.
192. In fact, on January 2, 2008, January 31, 2008 and March 7, 2008, a high-ranking FIFA official caused payments of $616,000, $1,600,000, and $7,784,000 - totaling $10 million - to be wired from a FIFA account in Switzerland to a Bank of America correspondent account in New York, New York, for credit to accounts held in the names of CFU and CONCACAF, but controlled by the defendant JACK WARNER, at Republic Bank in Trinidad and Tobago....
