The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) official and head of the Guam Football Association, who has also been provisionally suspended by the AFC, accepted two charges of wire fraud conspiracy in front of US District Judge Pamela Chen in Brooklyn.
American citizen Lai admitted being paid $100,000 (£77,000/€91,000) by an AFC official who was then running for the FIFA Presidency against disgraced Sepp Blatter in 2011.
The money was allegedly used in exchange for Lai’s vote and support.
It was also revealed that Lai received a further $850,000 (£657,000/€777,000) between 2009 and 2014 from various officials in the Asian region to help them further their influence within the AFC and FIFA.
A document published this evening lists a Kuwaiti AFC official as “co-conspirator number two”, who was a “high-ranking official of FIFA, the Kuwait Football Association (KFA) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA)”.
It also says the Kuwaiti official was then elected onto the Executive Committee, which has since been rebranded as the FIFA Council.
According to prosecutors, the 55-year-old has also pleaded guilty to failing to disclose foreign bank accounts and agreed to forfeit a total of $1.1 million (£851,000/€1 million).
“The chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, Hans-Joachim Eckert, has provisionally banned Richard K. Lai, the President of the Guam Football Association, for a duration of 90 days,” a FIFA statement read.
