Judge drops corruption charges against former Fox exec implicated in World Cup bribery case

Just days after a bombshell New York Times report revealed new details about FIFA’s process to award Fox U.S. broadcast rights to the 2026 World Cup, a federal judge has moved to drop charges against Hernan Lopez, a former Fox executive implicated in a sprawling federal investigation into bribery at the highest levels of global soccer media negotiations.

On Wednesday, Judge Pamela K. Chen approved an effort by the federal government to dismiss the charges against Lopez, according to a report by Larry Neumeister in the Associated Press. In December, Justice Department prosecutors moved to drop the case against Lopez, citing shifting priorities under the Trump administration.

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Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels, and Full Play Group SA, a South American sports media company, “were convicted in 2023 of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to nab broadcasting rights to the World Cup and other top soccer matches,” per the AP.

Fox has long denied any involvement in the scandal, telling The New York Times earlier this week, “This case involves a legacy business that has no connection to the new Fox Corporation.” Fox, for its part, was never named a defendant in any case brought by the Justice Department. Lopez, however, was.

Testimony given in a previous case by Alejandro Burzaco, a former Argentine sports marketing executive who admitted to bribing a FIFA official to obtain inside information about television rights negotiations, said the inside information “gave Fox a decisive edge in what was supposed to be a blind auction for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups,” the Times reports. As was further detailed in the report, FIFA’s decision to move the 2022 World Cup in Qatar out of its usual summertime window and into November and December directly led to Fox securing a no-bid extension on its media rights deal to include the 2026 World Cup. By some estimates, Fox is paying approximately $1 billion under what current market value would be for this summer’s tournament.

As for Lopez, the former Fox executive seems to have benefited from an administration wholly uninterested in prosecuting corruption. In 2025, the Trump administration paused a statute prohibiting companies from giving money or gifts to foreign officials as a means of securing deals. The four-month pause came amid wider cuts at the Justice Department, including to the section of the agency that prosecuted fraud and corruption cases against public officials.

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A lawyer for the federal government told the judge at Wednesday’s hearing the administration would prefer to devote resources towards prosecuting matters of national security — like terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and human trafficking — rather than potential foul play in a deal for soccer rights made over a decade ago. The judge agreed, saying that was “sufficient justification” for the government to dismiss the indictment.

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