A former FIFA exec said that "he was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for his vote for the 2018 World Cup," newly released U.S. court documents show, according to Oliver Laughland of the London GUARDIAN. Rafael Salguero, a Guatemalan football administrator who served on FIFA’s exec committee, pled guilty to multiple corruption charges in '16 as part of the U.S. government’s "sprawling investigation." But a transcript of his plea hearing in a Brooklyn federal court was not released until Tuesday, with the former official expected to be sentenced this week. The redacted transcript reveals that Salguero told the court he was approached by an individual in '10 who offered him "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in exchange for his vote. Salguero said that he was approached on a flight from Mexico to Guatemala by an individual whose name is also redacted in the transcript. He said that he "met with the unnamed person multiple times after their first encounter to discuss the bribe." The transcript redacts the name of the bid Salguero was "told to vote for and the name of another individual, based in Italy, who had offered to provide the cash" (GUARDIAN, 12/4).
