The first former FIFA officials to stand trial since U.S. prosecutors began investigating the association’s shady practices are accused of agreeing “to receive millions of dollars in bribes” regarding the Copa America Centenario.

Assistant U.S. attorney Keith Edelman told the New York courtroom on Monday that the three defendants weren’t exclusively looking to unlawfully profit from that competition, and “did it year after year, tournament after tournament, bribe after bribe,” as reported by the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland.

The accused trio are:

• Jose Maria Marin – 85-year-old former president of the Brazilian Football Confederation
• Juan Angel Napout – 59-year-old former president of CONMEBOL and the Paraguayan Football Association
• Manuel Burga – 60-year-old former president of the Peruvian Football Federation

All three deny multiple counts of racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering; pocketing funds that Edelman suggested could’ve been spent on facilities around the world, and funding women’s and youth teams.

“The defendants cheated the sport in order to line their pockets with money that should have been spent to benefit the game, not themselves,” Edelman said, according to Reuters.

The trial’s primary focus will be on how marketing and sponsorship rights were distributed for the Copa America and the Copa Libertadores, and also domestic competition Copa do Brasil. Edelman says he possesses U.S. government-presented evidence from witness testimony, financial paperwork, covert recordings, and further records that prove corrupt behaviour.

Napout is alleged to have accepted bribes amounting to “over $100,000 at a time.”

The defence attorneys didn’t deny any wrongdoing by FIFA officials in general, but insisted their clients weren’t wrapped up in it. They claimed the U.S. government’s investigation was relying too heavily on the accounts of FIFA employees who had pleaded guilty and were trying to lessen their sentences by becoming whistleblowers for the case.

Marin, Napout, and Burga are expected to receive lengthy sentences if found guilty in a trial that could last around six weeks. Of the 42 charged in the FIFA investigation so far, 24 have pleaded guilty and two have been sentenced.

INDIANAPOLIS – Colts coach Chuck Pagano defended the team’s medical staff on Monday a day after questions arose on how they handled quarterback Jacoby Brissett’s concussion situation in Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Our guys, if they’re not 100 percent, they’re not going to put them back out there. Period,” Pagano said.

Brissett went into the concussion tent on the sideline after he took a shot to the back of the head from Steelers defensive lineman Stephon Tuitt on a third-down scramble with less than two minutes left in the third quarter. Backup quarterback Scott Tolzien took the field on the Colts’ next series, only to have Brissett run on at the last second.

Brissett’s postgame media session was cancelled after the team announced that he developed concussion symptoms following their 20-17 loss to the Steelers.

Pagano said they plan to send the NFL the video of the play to review because there wasn’t a flag thrown on the play and it appeared to be a helmet-to-helmet hit on the play. He was asked if evaluating for concussions on the sideline is a difficult thing for the NFL to handle.

“No, I think it’s simple,” he said. “I think they got the thing set up the way it’s supposed to be set up. A guy gets hit and there’s a helmet-to-helmet shot and we all see it – you can go back and look at the TV copy, you guys saw the same thing I saw. You’re not supposed to be able to do that (helmet-to-helmet hits), but it happened. We pull him out, they go through the protocol, check off all the boxes, dot the I’s, cross the T’s. No, they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.”

Brissett did not speak to the media on Monday because he’s still in the concussion protocol. The Colts don’t play again until Nov. 26 because they have their bye this weekend. Tolzien will start against the Tennessee Titans if Brissett is still in the protocol.

Between 1927 and 1939, roaming outside-left Eric Brook registered 177 goals over 491 matches for Manchester City, setting a scoring record that went untroubled for 78 years.

Now, despite playing in five fewer seasons and just 264 matches, Sergio Aguero has surpassed that high by netting his 178th for City on Wednesday.

And what a moment to achieve the feat. In an excellent to-and-fro encounter at Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo, Aguero planted a finish into the bottom corner after a 69th-minute counter-attack.

Aguero had equalled Brook’s record in Oct. 21’s 3-0 stroll past Burnley.

Related: How Guardiola’s reimagining of Aguero revives his South American roots

Aguero hit the ground running in the northwest, scoring twice against Swansea City in his 2011 debut. And by the end of that season, Aguero firmly established himself in English football’s history books. The Argentinian slowed down time to skip through outstretched limbs and rifle past Queens Park Rangers’ Paddy Kenny to clinch the club’s first league title in 44 years – sweetly snatching it from the grasp of archrival Manchester United with seconds remaining – and test the vocal chords of commentator Martin Tyler.

There have been plenty of other moments during Aguero’s City stint that will be recalled long after he completes an expected triumphant homecoming to Independiente, his first club based in the province of Buenos Aires. City fans will remember his acute-angle goal past Liverpool’s Pepe Reina in 2013, his hat trick to secure a late victory over Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich in 2014, and his five-goal haul to thump Newcastle United in 2015.

In little over six years, Aguero has staved off striking competition from Tevez, Dzeko, and Balotelli, and Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo, Wilfried Bony, and Kelechi Iheanacho. And despite a perceived “difficult” relationship between Aguero and the team’s newest striking addition, Gabriel Jesus, it’s potentially evolving into the most cohesive partnership yet.

At 29, there’s plenty of time for Aguero to distance himself for much longer than the 78-year cushion Brook enjoyed.

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Case Keenum tells reporters that he’s a big Teddy Bridgewater fan and says that he raises the “cool factor of the quarterback group.”

LANDOVER, Maryland — The Minnesota Vikings are 7-2 and Case Keenum has started seven of the games as their quarterback.

You had that, right? Back in August, when you were making your NFL season predictions, you had the Vikings at 7-2 with Keenum the quarterback? Sure you did.

You probably also had the New Orleans Saints at 7-2, rolling into Buffalo in Week 10 and hanging 47 on the No. 6-ranked scoring defense without a single Drew Brees touchdown pass.

And you had both of those teams a game behind the 8-1 Philadelphia Eagles, with the Los Angeles Rams duking it out atop the NFC West with the Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers comfortably between those first-place Saints and the third-place Atlanta Falcons in the South.

• Statistics
• Scoreboard
• 2017 schedule, results
• Standings

If you did predict all of this — heck, if you predicted any of it — we’d like your thoughts on this week’s lottery numbers. And by “we,” I mean me and Case Keenum, who seems as amused about what’s going on with him and the Vikings as anyone.

“Just feels good, is all,” Keenum said after throwing for 304 yards, four touchdowns and two keep-em-in-the-game second-half interceptions in the Vikings’ 38-30 victory over Washington here Sunday. “I love this squad, I love this team, I love this offense, I love these coaches and we’re having fun.”

Yeah, 7-2 is fun, no doubt, and the Vikings are feeling no pain right now. They’ve won five games in a row, increasing their point total each week, and hold a two-game lead in the NFC North on both the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. This past week, they put Week 1 starting quarterback Sam Bradford on injured reserve and activated former starter Teddy Bridgewater. The latter’s return to the starting lineup might feel like a foregone conclusion to lots of folks around the team, and certainly to most on the outside. But career backup Keenum doesn’t seem too bothered by any of it.

“Teddy’s a fan favorite. He’s my favorite, too,” Keenum said. “I may have a Teddy Bridgewater jersey at home. Teddy definitely raises the cool factor of the quarterback group. Tremendously.”

That’s Keenum, talking about the guy everybody thinks is about to take his job. That’s where the Vikings are right now. They’re 7-2 and don’t seem all the way sure about how.

“Case played outstanding,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said, then in the next breath, “I wish the two throws he had in the second half he would not have made. But you know, he’s an excitable guy and he needs to understand what are the good plays and what are the bad plays sometimes.”

Said Keenum the Excitable: “I need to not make a bad play worse. I gave them a couple of gifts.”

You wonder, looking ahead, how long this can last. The Vikings play two very tough games in the next 11 days — home this Sunday to the first-place Rams and then at Detroit on Thanksgiving. Two straight road games in Atlanta and Carolina follow that, and by the time they’re through that gauntlet we’ll have some better idea about how good the Vikings are, what their best option is at quarterback and what their chances are of becoming the first team to play a Super Bowl in its home stadium.

It’s not crazy to imagine this team as a real contender. The Vikings made the playoffs as division champs two years ago and started 5-0 last season before a brutal run of injury attrition on the offensive line cost them any chance of making good on that. They hit the line hard in free agency, brought back the core of a smothering defense, and their wide receiver duo of Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs makes a case as the very best in the NFL. You could convince yourself that they’re a quarterback away, but the way Keenum’s playing, that may be underselling them.

“Yeah, wins, they all count the same,” Vikings safety Harrison Smith said. “Obviously, from a defensive side, we don’t want to give up that many points, so there’s a lot of work to be done there. But a win’s a win. We did enough to win.”