More than six years after federal prosecutors indicted Hernan Lopez for his alleged involvement in a scheme to bribe FIFA soccer officials, a court has dismissed the case.
Lopez, the former head of Fox International Channels, was convicted in this case in 2023, along with the sports marketing company Full Play Group. In September of that year, Judge Pamela Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted Lopez's motion for acquittal and overturned the conviction of Full Play. Last summer, a federal appeals court overturned Chen's decision and reinstated the convictions—before the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the case "in the interests of justice" in December 2025.
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Lopez has long maintained his innocence in this case. According to court documents, on May 27, Chen formally granted the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the indictments against Lopez and Full Play Group with a stay of execution (meaning the charges against them cannot be brought again).
In April 2020, federal prosecutors indicted Lopez and another former 21st Century Fox executive, Carlos Martinez, on charges of conspiring to pay millions of dollars annually to FIFA officials in South America between 2000 and 2015 in exchange for broadcast rights to the Copa Libertadores club tournament, as well as confidential information about bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the United States. (A Brooklyn jury acquitted Martinez of those charges in 2023.)
After leaving Fox in 2016, Lopez founded the podcast studio and network Wondery, which he sold to Amazon in a deal that closed in early 2021. Lopez is currently the founder of Owl & Co., a consulting and research firm he launched in 2024.
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