More than a decade after the FIFAGate corruption scandal shook international football, former Costa Rican Football Federation president Eduardo Li has renewed his attempt to overturn his US conviction and recover more than $683,000 paid under his sentence. Li’s attorneys submitted updated arguments Monday to the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The underlying petition was first filed in January 2024 and asks the court to vacate his conviction through a rarely used legal procedure known as a writ of error coram nobis. The remedy allows defendants who have already completed their sentences to challenge convictions based on serious legal errors that could not have been addressed earlier.
Li is seeking the return of $668,000 forfeited under his plea agreement, along with $15,300 in fines and court assessments. His attorneys argue that the foreign commercial bribery at the center of his case no longer supports a federal conviction under the legal theory used by prosecutors.
The petition does not claim that Li rejected or never received improper payments. Instead, it challenges whether the conduct he admitted to could legally be prosecuted in the United States as honest-services wire fraud and racketeering.
The defense initially based its case on a 2023 ruling that overturned the convictions of former Fox executive Hernán López and the Argentine sports marketing company Full Play Group. The judge ruled at the time that the federal honest-services fraud law did not cover the foreign commercial bribery alleged in the case.
A federal appeals court later reversed that decision and reinstated the convictions in July 2025. However, US prosecutors subsequently moved to dismiss the case against López and Full Play, and the charges were formally dropped in May 2026.
Li’s lawyers argue that the government’s decision to abandon that prosecution strengthens his request for similar relief. The López dismissal, however, was based on prosecutorial discretion and the government’s decision to devote its resources to other priorities. It did not produce a final court ruling declaring that foreign commercial bribery can never be prosecuted under US law.
Li was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 27, 2015, during the international operation that exposed widespread corruption involving FIFA officials and sports marketing companies. He was extradited to the United States in December of that year. On October 7, 2016, Li pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy. The case involved bribes connected to media and marketing rights for Costa Rica’s World Cup qualifying matches, international friendly games and other football contracts.
Li admitted negotiating and receiving payments while serving as president of the Costa Rican Football Federation from 2007 to 2015. He was sentenced in November 2018 to time already served, representing roughly nine months in Swiss and US detention. The court also imposed two years of supervised release and the financial penalties he is now seeking to recover.
Li is not the only former football official challenging a FIFAGate conviction. The estate of former Brazilian Football Confederation president José María Marín has filed a similar petition seeking the return of nearly $5 million in fines, forfeited funds, restitution and other payments. The court is expected to receive the US government’s response to the latest arguments in August.
A successful petition would erase Li’s federal conviction, but it would not automatically end the lifetime ban FIFA imposed on him in 2017 for violations involving bribery, corruption and conflicts of interest. Li could ask FIFA to reconsider that punishment if the US conviction is vacated, but the football organization’s disciplinary case remains separate.
Li presided over the Costa Rican federation during the national team’s historic run to the quarterfinals of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. There is currently no confirmed indication that he plans to seek another position in Costa Rican football.
