Soccer-ISL defendants blame FIFA for marketing firm's collapse

By Mark Ledsom

ZUG, Switzerland, April 3 (Reuters) - The criminal hearings into the collapse of FIFA's former marketing partners ISL ended on Thursday with defendants putting the blame for the company's failure squarely at the feet of world soccer's governing body.

Six former executives of ISL and its parent company ISMM are facing charges of criminal mismanagement in a trial that has also revealed how ISL paid large bribes to high-ranking sports officials in its efforts to secure lucrative contracts.

Presiding judge Carole Ziegler said the court would reconvene on July 2 to deliver its verdicts.

ISL's collapse in 2001 with estimated debts of more than $300 million left FIFA with a gaping hole in its finances and prompted the organisation to instigate proceedings against its former partners.

Several of the defendants insisted on Thursday, however, that it was FIFA's deliberate decision to pull out of an agreed joint rescue package for ISL that led to the company's failure.

"The only thing we did was to try our hardest to rescue a company in which we had invested our heart's blood," former ISMM CEO Daniel Beauvois told the court in an emotional final address.

"If we failed, it was not due to a lack of ability but because our main business partners did all that they could to make sure we did not survive, allowing another company with FIFA at its head to take over our operations."

FIFA later withdrew its suit against ISL, but state prosecutors said they had uncovered enough evidence to press ahead with their own case.