Fox Sports has been dragged into the Fifa scandal after being accused in court of paying bribes to secure football rights.

Sky Sports’s sister network was named among some of the world’s biggest broadcasters during the trial of three officials from the game’s governing body in Brooklyn, New York.

Alejandro Burzaco, the former chief executive of sports-marketing company Torneos y Competencias SA, testified that companies he had partnered with, which also included Full Play Argentina and Traffic Group in Brazil, were involved in a bribery scam.

Asked by Assistant US Attorney Sam Nitze what the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox Sports hoped to gain by winning the broadcasting rights, Burzaco replied: “Using the TV rights to expand its Fox signal in all of the Americas from Argentina to the USA”

Fox Sports, Televisa in Mexico and Globo Comunicacao and Participacoes SA in Brazil did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Having pleaded guilty to his own part in what was branded the “World Cup of fraud” following 2015’s FBI-orchestrated dawn raids of Fifa’s luxury Zurich hotel and arrest of several of its most senior figures, Burzaco on Tuesday became the first of several co-operating witnesses to testify in the trial of Jose Maria Marin, Juan Angel Napout and Manuel Burga.