Argentine father and son sports marketing executives Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis have agreed to admit paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to soccer officials, striking a deal with United States prosecutors more than a decade after they were first charged in a sprawling FIFA corruption case.
The pair, aged 81 and 51 respectively, appeared in a Brooklyn federal courtroom on Thursday, August 27, to inform a judge they had reached a deferred prosecution agreement negotiated over the past several months, according to prosecutors.
As part of the deal, both men admitted to paying "tens of millions of dollars in commercial bribes" to officials at South American soccer organisations in exchange for lucrative television and sponsorship rights to major tournaments, prosecutors said in a court filing.
The payments reportedly began in the early 1990s and continued until 2015, when the Jinkises and a dozen others were indicted as part of the United States Justice Department's wide ranging investigation into corruption at FIFA, football's global governing body.
Co-owners of Argentine sports marketing company Full Play, the pair used the bribes to secure media rights for major fixtures including World Cup qualifiers and the Copa America, according to court documents.
Prosecutors described the scheme as one built on abuse of trust across generations of football officials. "The defendants and their co-conspirators corrupted the enterprise by engaging in various criminal activities, including fraud, bribery and money laundering," they said.
"Two generations of soccer officials abused their positions of trust for personal gain, frequently through an alliance with unscrupulous sports marketing executives who shut out competitors and kept highly lucrative contracts for themselves through the systematic payment of bribes and kickbacks," the filing added.
In total, officials implicated in the wider case are accused of soliciting and receiving well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for backing sports marketing executives willing to make the unlawful payments, some of it tied to matches played on American soil.
Unlike many others charged in the long running investigation, the Jinkises managed to avoid extradition and remained fugitives in Argentina for years, before travelling to New York earlier this year for confidential plea negotiations with federal prosecutors.
Under the agreement, the fraud charges against them will be dropped in exchange for their admissions, alongside a forfeiture of $50 million. The pair are expected to be released on bond, having formally pleaded not guilty to a newly filed charge on Thursday, and are unlikely to face any prison time.
The case has produced more than two dozen convictions to date, with several defendants serving prison sentences while others cooperated with investigators in exchange for reduced penalties.
A Swiss bank and an Argentine sports marketing firm have separately agreed to their own deferred prosecution arrangements, together surrendering close to $200 million in fines and forfeited funds, though no individual defendant had previously received such a deal.
The investigation's momentum has faced headwinds in recent months, with the Justice Department under the current administration moving to dismiss charges against several other defendants, including former Fox Corporation executive Hernan Lopez and Full Play itself, both of whom had their 2023 convictions reinstated on appeal before being formally dismissed in May.