FIFA officials arrested in investigation
Top offifficials among those facing charges, including possible Cup bid rigging.
The U.S. government launches an attack on what it calls deepseated and brazen corruption in soccer’s global governing body.
The U.S. government launched an attack on what it called deep-seated and brazen corruption in soccer’s global governing body Wednesday, pulling FIFA executives out of a luxury Swiss hotel to face racketeering charges and raiding regional offices in Miami.
Swiss offici al s also invaded FIFA headquarters, seizing records and computers to investigate whether the decisions to award World Cups to Russia and Qatar were rigged.
Scandals and rumors of corruption have dogged FIFA throughout the 17-year reign of its president, Sepp Bl atter, but he was not named in ei--
ther investigation. He is scheduled to stand Friday for re-election to a fifth four-year term, and the organization said the vote would go ahead as planned.
FIFA also ruled out a revote of the World Cup bids won by Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.
“We welcome the actions and the investigations by the U.S. and Swiss authorities and believe that it will help to reinforce measures that FIFA has already taken to root out any wrongdoing in football,” Blatter said in a statement. The organization said it was cooperating fully.
Some of the biggest names in soccer said they had complained for years about corruption in FIFA, which oversees the world’s most popular sport and generates billions in revenue.
“I was treated like a crazy person,” former soccer star Diego Mara- dona told radio station Radio La Red in Buenos Aires. “Now the FBI has told the truth.”
Former Brazilian star Romario, an outspoken FIFA critic, said “someone had to eventually arrest them one day.”
Authorities conducted morning raids in Zurich at FIFA headquarters and the five-star Baur au Lac Hotel. In Miami, FBI and IRS agents carried computers and boxes out of the headquarters of CONCACAF, the governing body of North and Central America and the Caribbean, whose past and current presidents were among 14 defendants under indictment.
Swiss police arrested seven soccer officials at the request of U.S. prosecutors. Four other soccer and marketing officials agreed to plead guilty.
“Beginning in 1991, two generations of soccer officials … used their positions of trust within their respective organizations to solicit bribes from sports marketers in exchange for the commer- cial rights to their soccer tournaments,” U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said at a New York news conference. “They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament.”
U.S. prosecutors said they will seek forfeiture of more than $151 million the government alleges was illegally obtained. They said the indictments were only the beginning of their efforts. Richard Weber, head of the IRS Criminal Division, called the case “the World Cup of fraud.”
Two current FIFA vice presidents were among those arrested and indicted, Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands and Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay, the Justice Department said. The others are Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, Julio Rocha of Nicaragua, Costas Takkas of Britain, Rafael Esquivel of Venezuela and Jose Maria Marin of Brazil.
All seven are connected with the regional confederations of North and South America and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
FIFA suspended 11 people, including Webb and Figueredo, from all soccer-related activities.
Webb called himself a reformer when he was elected as CONCACAF president in 2012. Prosecutors alleged that part of the bribe money directed to Webb was transferred to the account of a contractor building a swimming pool at Webb’s Loganville, Georgia, home.
The Swiss justice ministry said six of the seven officials arrested oppose extradition, adding that U.S. authorities now have 40 days to submit the formal extradition request. One of those detained, who was unidentified, agreed to “a simplified extradition procedure,” meaning he can be sent to the U.S.
Four of the men indicted are marketing executives and another works in broadcasting. Jack Warner, an ex-FIFA vice president from Trinidad and Tobago, turned himself in at Port-of-Spain.