The former president of Brazil’s soccer federation was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines and restitution on Wednesday by a federal judge in New York who called him a “cancer” on the sport.
The official, José Maria Marin, was one of more than 40 individuals and companies charged in a broad corruption case that burst into public view with a series of arrests during a gathering of top officials of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, in Zurich in 2015. Nearly all the defendants, which include several of FIFA’s top leaders, were accused of soliciting, paying or accepting bribes in exchange for valuable television and marketing rights.