NEW YORK, Feb 17 (Reuters) - As world soccer body FIFA faces pressure to reform in the wake of a global corruption scandal, several current and former media executives are raising questions about the transparency of the bidding process for U.S. radio broadcasting rights to the World Cup.
In particular, these executives point to the apparent two-decade lock on U.S. Spanish-language radio rights held by Miami-based broadcaster Futbol de Primera. The company was co-founded by Andres Cantor, who famously introduced American soccer fans to the Latin American style of yelling "Gooooooal!"
One former chief executive of a rival broadcaster, Joaquin Blaya, said that in 2000 then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter told him he had a deal for the next two World Cups in South Korea/Japan (2002) and Germany (2006), but the contracts instead went to Cantor's Futbol de Primera for a lower price.