World soccer rocked as top officials held in US, Swiss graft cases
ZURICH, Switzerland (Reuters) - Seven of the most powerful figures in global soccer faced extradition to the United States on corruption charges after being arrested on Wednesday in Switzerland, where authorities also announced a criminal investigation into the awarding of the next two World Cups.
The world’s most popular sport was plunged into turmoil after US and Swiss authorities announced separate inquiries into the activities of the game’s powerful governing body.
US authorities said nine football officials and five sports media and promotions executives faced corruption charges involving more than $150 million in bribes. Swiss police arrested seven FIFA officials who are now awaiting extradition to the United States.
Those arrested did not include Sepp Blatter, the Swiss head of FIFA, but included several just below him in the hierarchy of sport’s wealthiest body.
Of the 14 indicted by the US Department of Justice, seven FIFA officials, including Vice President Jeffrey Webb, were being held in Zurich. Four people and two corporate defendants had already pleaded guilty to various charges, the department said.
The Miami, Florida, headquarters of CONCACAF, the soccer federation that governs North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, were being searched on Wednesday, the DoJ said.
“As charged in the indictment, the defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world,” said FBI Director James Comey. “Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks, and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA.”
The FIFA officials appeared to have walked into a trap set by US and Swiss authorities. The arrests were made at dawn at a plush Zurich hotel, the Baur au Lac, where FIFA officials are staying ahead of a vote this week where they are expected to anoint Blatter for a fifth term in office. Suites at the hotel cost up to $4,000 a night.
FIFA called the arrests a “difficult moment” but said Blatter would seek a fifth term as FIFA head as planned and the upcoming World Cups would go ahead as intended.
Separate from the US investigation, Swiss prosecutors said they had opened their own criminal proceedings against unidentified people on suspicion of mismanagement and money laundering related to the awarding of rights to host the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Data and documents were seized from computers at FIFA’s Zurich headquarters, the Swiss prosecutors said.
Officials said that following the arrests, accounts at several banks in Switzerland had been blocked.
The US Department of Justice named those arrested in its case as: Webb, Eduardo Li, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, FIFA Vice President Eugenio Figueredo, Rafael Esquivel, and José Maria Marin.
An authoritative source said the extradition process could take years if it was contested.
The DOJ said the defendants included US and South American sports marketing executives alleged to have paid and agreed to pay “well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments.”
“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deeprooted both abroad and here in the United States,” US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
“It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks,” she said.
The international governing body of football collects billions of dollars in revenue, mostly from sponsorship and television rights for World Cups.
It has persistently been dogged by reports of corruption which it says it investigates itself, but until now it has escaped major criminal cases in any country.
In particular, the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar, a tiny desert country with no domestic tradition of soccer, was heavily criticized by soccer officials in Western countries. FIFA was forced to acknowledge that it is too hot to play soccer there in the summer when the cup is traditionally held, forcing schedules around the globe to be rewritten to move the cup.
Qatar’s stock market fell sharply as news of the Swiss investigation emerged. A Russian official said his country would still host the 2018 World Cup.
Three years ago, FIFA hired a former US prosecutor to examine allegations of bribery over the awarding of the World Cups to Qatar and Russia, but last year it refused to publish his report, releasing only a summary in which it said there were no major irregularities. The investigator quit, saying his report had been mischaracterised.
Most of the arrested officials are in Switzerland for the FIFA Congress, where Blatter faces a challenge from Jordan’s Prince Ali bin Al Hussein in an election on Friday to lead the organization. Other potential challengers to Blatter have all dropped out the race.
Prince Ali, who has promised to clean up FIFA if elected to the top job, said it was “a sad day for football” and called for leadership in the world body that could restore the confidence of hundreds of millions of fans around the world.