Report: DOJ Issues Subpoenas in Investigation Into International Sports Corruption
The U.S. Department of Justice issued grand jury subpoenas in January as part of an investigation into international sports corruption, reportsThe New York Times.
The investigation involves organizations such as FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic Committee as well as people involved in bids to host international sporting competitions.
According to The Times, the Justice Department is looking into possible racketeering, money laundering and honest service fraud charges related to bids for elite competitions.
The subpoenas are for documents and records dating to 2013, and since then the U.S. has won bids for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2021 IAAF Outdoor Track and Field World Championships in Eugene, Ore. The subpoenas are related to two track and field world championship events and the IAAF, track and field's governing body. It didn't mention the Los Angeles bid, according to the Times.
Last summer, it was reported that the FBI and IRS were investigating the bid by Eugene and USA Track and Field for the 2021 world championships. The 2019 world championships were awarded to Doha, Qatar, over Eugene. The decision to award the world championships to Eugene were announce at the 2015 IAAF council meeting in Beijing but came as a surprise because there was no formal bidding process. Lamine Diack was the IAAF president at the time of the announcement but has been detained in France since November 2015 due to allegations of accepting bribes and covering up doping violations by Russian athletes.
The investigation is being conducted by the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York, which also oversaw extensive investigations into FIFA and Russian doping. The individuals who were subpoenaed must provide information including personal and corporate bank records in federal court.
The Justice Department's investigation of FIFA led to prosecutions of a number of top executives and caused Sepp Blatter to resign as the organization's president. The FIFA corruption investigation, which dealt in part with the organization's awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, culminated in a federal trial last year.
