Miami Sports Marketing Firm Doled Out More Than $40 Million In Bribes To Soccer Officials, Feds Claim

Miami-based soccer executive Aaron Davidson paid bribes to get contracts, feds allege. Photo courtesy: Worldsoccer via Wikicommons.

Miami-based soccer executive Aaron Davidson paid bribes to get contracts, feds allege. (Photo courtesy: Worldsoccer via Wikicommons.)

By Francisco Alvarado
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

As news spread of the massive racketeering and corruption indictment against 14 top world soccer executives it didn’t take long for a direct connection to Miami — the American Casablanca — to emerge. Yesterday, federal agents raided the Miami Beach regional headquarters of the Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football, otherwise known as CONCACAF, the culmination of a three-year-old investigation into FIFA that has left the world’s soccer organization reeling.

Among those facing charges is Aaron Davidson, 44-year-old president of Miami-based Traffic Sports USA, which had the marketing rights to the Gold Cup and CONCACAF Champions League soccer tournaments. Traffic’s owner, Brazilian businessman Jose Hawilla, already pleaded guilty and is cooperating with investigators.

The 163-page, 47-count indictment lays out how Hawilla, Davidson and other Traffic executives agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars in bribes to CONCACAF officials to win the lucrative marketing rights contracts for soccer events in the western hemisphere. They funneled the money from bank accounts in New York City and Miami.

According to the complaint, Hawilla relocated in 1992 from Brazil to the United States, where he negotiated a deal with then-CONCACAF president Jack Warner to acquire the marketing rights to the Gold Cup. Hawilla allegedly paid Warner, who later become a FIFA vice president, bribes in exchange for the rights to five editions of the Gold Cup played between 1996 and 2003.

The business relationship between CONCACAF and Traffic, which is headquartered at 501 Brickell Key Drive in Miami, continued to blossom throughout the 2000s, according to the indictment. Along the way, Traffic executives began paying off other soccer officials, including Eduardo Li, president of the Costa Rican soccer federation, and Julio Rocha, at the time the president of the Nicaraguan soccer federation and subsequently a FIFA development officer.

Traffic’s payola scheme continued under the reign of Jeffrey Webb, who became CONCACAF president in 2012 and promised to weed out corruption, according to the indictment.

An unnamed co-conspirator simply identified as a Traffic executive allegedly supported Webb’s candidacy by sending $50,000 to the bank account of a Cayman company controlled by Costas Takkas, an associate of CONCACAF’s new leader and a former secretary general of the Caribbean Football Union, or CFU.

“Around the same time, Webb, with Takkas’ aid and assistance, used his growing influence to solicit a bribe from Traffic USA in connection with its efforts to acquire from CFU the commercial rights to the qualifier matches to be played in advance of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups,” the indictment claims.

In addition, Traffic in 2012 joined two competing firms to acquire the media rights to the Copa America and Centenario tournaments. The three companies agreed to pay $110 million in bribes to Webb and four other Latin American soccer officials. To date, only Traffic had paid its share, $40 million, according to the indictment.