Year of scandal – but 2017 was not only about Russian doping
The Fifa bribery trial, Michel Platini’s failed appeal, Chris Froome and Maria Sharapova all helped to make it a dark time for sport
Russia being banned from the Winter Olympics stole the headlines but may also have overshadowed an otherwise sorry year for sport in terms of scandals.
It was a particularly damaging year for sporting officials, not least from the world of football and Fifa in particular.
Former Guam football federation president Richard Lai pleaded guilty in April to taking bribes worth almost US$1 million while Costa Rican Eduardo Li, Guatemala’s Brayan Jimenez, Venezuela’s Rafael Esquivel and Julio Rocha, of Nicaragua, all received lifetime bans, with Nigeria’s Amos Adamu handed a two-year ban.
Hector Trujillo, of Guatemala, the former general secretary of his country’s football federation, was the first person brought down in the widespread Fifa corruption scandal to be sentenced to jail, given eight months by a judge in New York in October.
Two more, Jose Maria Marin, former head of Brazil’s Football Confederation, and Juan Angel Napout, former head of Paraguayan football, were convicted of corruption last week for accepting more than US$17 million in bribes between them.
