The most important soccer competition to be played in the U.S. in a generation almost never got here.
The Copa America Centenario, the 100th-anniversary edition of the world’s oldest international tournament, kicks off Friday in Santa Clara when the U.S. meets Colombia. But as recently as last winter the event was dead, derailed by the Justice Department’s investigation into bribery and graft at the highest levels of global soccer.
More than a dozen men who had spent two years planning the tournament, and enriching themselves with at least $110 million in kickbacks along the way, had been indicted, so sponsors closed their checkbooks and walked away.