Assistants at Major College Basketball Programs Face Bribery Charges

[Botany]

Source: NY Times

Assistants at Major College Basketball Programs Face Bribery Charges


Ten people involved with the highest echelon of college basketball, including four assistant coaches and a senior executive at Adidas, are facing federal bribery, fraud and other corruption charges, prosecutors in Manhattan announced on Tuesday.

The United States attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement that since 2015 the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors have been investigating “the criminal influence of money on coaches and student-athletes who participate in intercollegiate basketball governed by the N.C.A.A.”

The investigation has revealed “numerous instances” of bribes paid by athlete advisers, among others, to assistant coaches and sometimes directly to student-athletes at N.C.A.A. Division I universities, the complaint said. The bribes were designed to get commitments from college stars to work with specific agents and companies after they turned professional, or to convince coveted high schoolers to attend specific universities.

snip

One of the three indictments charges five people with paying high school athletes or their families to attend particular universities. Those indicted include James Gatto, identified as the head of global sports marketing, basketball for “Company-1.” Though the company is not named, Mr. Gatto works for Adidas in that role.




Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/sports/ncaa-adidas-bribery.html?mcubz=1

[hibbing]

1. Shocking

Not really, imagine all the other stuff that is not public.


Peace

[Stallion]

2. I Expect this Investigation to Grow Exponentially Like the Olympic/FIFA Investigations

Last edited Tue Sep 26, 2017, 01:19 PM - Edit history (1)

once the subpoenas roll out these coaches are going to flip and reveal the sordid underbelly of these shoe companies. No telling how many schools get dragged into this investigation.

[Botany]

3. I now wonder about under armor, nike, and others?

n/t

[Stallion]

4. Nike and Undr Armour Are Involved Too

one Paragraph (I think it No. 36) mentions competing offers from different shoe companies involving $100,000+. College Basketball has had this coming for decades due to the intersection of AAU, street agents and college basketball coaches shoe deals. College Football has only recently-well last 10 years or so-starting getting into the same mess. I have no doubt there are at minimum 30-50 schools involved in this shoe brand direction of recruits to particular schools identified by that brand

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Yeah, I See This As A First Wave

This is going to turn out to be the tip of the iceberg.

[nitpicker]

5. Link to the DoJ PR

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-arrest-10-individuals-including-four-division-i-coaches-college