Thursday brought the arrests of more FIFA officials, but the U.S. Department of Justice’s battle against the soccer organization is far from over.
The U.S. DOJ announced Thursday that CONCACAF president Alfredo Hawit and CONMEBOL president Juan Angel Napout were among 16 current or former FIFA officials indicted for racketeering conspiracy and corruption. In addition, guilty pleas for eight other defendants, including Jeffrey Webb, Alejandro Burzaco and José Margulies, were also announced.
“The Department of Justice is committed to ending the rampant corruption we have alleged amidst the leadership of international soccer,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch, “not only because of the scale of the schemes, or the brazenness and breadth of the operation required to sustain such corruption, but also because of the affront to international principles that this behavior represents.
“The message from this announcement should be clear to every culpable individual who remains in the shadows, hoping to evade our investigation: You will not wait us out. You will not escape our focus.”
When asked whether or not officials from U.S. Soccer were under investigation or expected to be charged, Lynch declined to comment.
Amongst the CONCACAF indictments are FIFA Disciplinary Committee member Ariel Alvarado, former Honduran federation president Rafael Callejas and former Salvadoran federation president Reynaldo Vasquez, as well as three officials from Guatemala.
The CONMEBOL indictments include Marco Polo del Nero and Ricardo Teixeira, the current and former presidents of the Brazilian soccer federation, as well as José Luís Meiszner and Eduardo Deluca, the current and former general secretaries of CONMEBOL.
In total, the 27 officials indicted since May have allegedly taken over $200 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for the sale of media and marketing rights for international tournaments and matches.
“The charges unsealed today send a clear message to those who corrupted a sport beloved by millions to satisfy their own greed: We are determined to put a stop to bribery and corruption in international soccer and to make room for a new era of integrity and reform,” said U.S. Attorney Robert Capers. “This indictment is the latest step in that effort, but our work is not done.
“While our investigation continues at home, we also look forward to continuing our collaboration with our international partners, including in particular the Swiss authorities, because there is so much yet to be done.”
It’s a mess and touches every federation (there are talks that Germany bought the 2006 World Cup). However, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL are pretty bad.
The whole of FIFA is pretty bad .. you think CAF or AFC is any cleaner? I say this: How does someone or an organization that’s fallen as far as FIFA get itself cleaned up? First, they have to look at themselves the same as a rock-bottom alcoholic would and begin by admiting they have a problem that they’re powerless to clean up themselves.
Or, the role of managing soccer on a world-wide basis can be stripped from FIFA and given to a new organization … perhaps that’s actually the far simpler and more logical path.
FIFA is in the business of growing football and making money and they are extremely good a both of those things. Blatter took a moribund FIFA and turn it into the behemoth of a business it is today. Maybe their methods were not the best but they’re really not different than what baseball, football the Olympics or the NCAA did to build their brand.
At least their shady deals don’t affect the product on the field like MLS’ does.
They’re all bad. We only see a disproportionate amount of corruption in CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, because those were the confederations that did the most illegal money transfers in our jurisdiction that Blazer could finger. If you lift a rock up on the other confederations, I’m sure the corruption is as bad if not worse.
Damn. Don’t mess with Loretta.
Unless you’re your a representative of a sanctuary city! Then you can do whatever you want. Sad.
Don’t even go there with the political bashing. This story is relevant to world soccer, let’s leave it there! No need to be a troll.
BSUSC,
To quote Loretta Lynch,…”I’ll look into it,…and get back to you.”