Ex-FIFA VP enters guilty pleas
A former vice president of soccer’s international governing body pleaded guilty to four conspiracy counts Monday in the sweeping FIFA bribery scandal.
Speaking through a translator, Alfredo Hawit told Judge Raymond Dearie in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that he had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in connection with a scheme to sell marketing rights to tournaments in Latin America.
The Honduras native told the judge he had conspired with others to get companies in Florida and Argentina marketing rights in exchange for bribes paid to bank accounts that he and his family controlled in Panama and Honduras.
Prosecutors said soccer officials have taken hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal payments in the last 25 years.
“On behalf of our ownership group and the entire Arizona Coyotes organization, I would like to sincerely thank Don for all of his hard work and the many contributions he made to our organization during his tenure,” Coyotes President and CEO Anthony LeBlanc said in a statement.
Maloney spent the past nine seasons as executive vice president and GM.
The Coyotes lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2010 and 2011, but rallied fans across the Valley of the Sun with an unexpected run to the 2012 Western Conference finals.
Stanford sits in second place, four shots behind Oregon, after the opening round of the 70th annual Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz.
Ed Snider, the Philadelphia Flyers founder whose Broad Street Bullies became the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup, died Monday after a two-year battle with bladder cancer.