They were arrested at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, who are carrying out an investigation into corruption at world soccer’s governing body.
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In Zurich, FIFA officials convened to announce plans to clean up global soccer.
Among the other South American officials indicted are Ricardo Teixeira, an ex-Brazilian federation head and former son-in-law of Joao Havelange, who was FIFA’s president in 1974-98; Marco Polo del Nero, president of the Brazilian football federation; recently resigned CONMEBOL Secretary General Jose Luis Meiszner; Manuel Burga, a former Peruvian soccer federation president; and Luis Chiriboga, president of the Ecuadorean federation and a member of CONMEBOL’s executive committee.
“Not content to hijack the world’s most popular sport for decades of ill-gotten gains, these defendants, as alleged, sought to institutionalize their corruption to ensure that it lived on, not for the good of the game but for their own personal aggrandizement and gain”, Lynch said. “The scale of corruption alleged herein is unconscionable”.
The two officials arrested were Alfredo Hawit, president of the CONCACAF, which is the governing body for North and Central America and in the Caribbean, as well as Juan Angel Napout, who is the president of CONMEBOL, which is in charge of South America.
It says it will “fully co-operate” with separate United States and Swiss investigations.
The FIFA officials, who are both vice presidents at the organization, are suspected of “accepting bribes of millions of dollars”, according to Swiss law enforcement authorities.
FIFA’s executive committee has been meeting in the city, voting on reforms.
The new board, which will function as the decision-making sector, are to be comprised of 36 members: seven each from Asia and Africa, five each from CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, nine from UEFA and three from Oceania, with a president as well as a vice president from each continent (three from UEFA) to be elected.
Also pleading guilty were Bedoya and former Chilean federation president Sergio Jadue. Future presidents and council members will be limited to 12 years in office.
Webb, a Cayman Islands citizen who has been released on bail and is largely restricted to his home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, three counts of wire fraud conspiracy and three counts of money laundering conspiracy. “Some of the offences were agreed and prepared in the USA”.
They are the third past or current presidents of each continental body to be indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice since May in a case that has shattered the reputations of soccer leaders in Latin America.
The meeting did support some reforms in a process that responds to the dual American and Swiss federal investigations.
Blatter and Platini face lifetime bans from soccer at ethics hearings expected this month.
Hayatou said: “FIFA is not corrupt”.
Carrard told reporters that the panel had scrapped an idea for a 74-year age limit for senior officials, calling it “arbitrary”.
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The arrests – at the same hotel where initial raid took place in May – came just before Fifa’s executive committee met to approve reform and transparency measures long resisted by football’s top leaders, but ones that gained traction in the aftermath of the scandal.
