NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in closing arguments at the first U.S. trial stemming from the FIFA corruption scandal accused three former South American soccer officials on Wednesday of making themselves rich off a vast bribery scheme while their defense lawyers called the evidence too weak to convict.
The high-ranking officials "took money for themselves instead of putting the interests of the soccer organizations first," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Mace said in federal court in New York.
The prosecutor at one point showed the jury an undated portrait of the defendants superimposed with the total amounts of bribes they allegedly agreed to collect from 2010 to 2016 in exchange for influencing awards of lucrative commercial rights to the sport's biggest tournaments: $4.