UPDATE: FIFA Officials charged with Racketeering, Wire Fraud, Money Laundering
FIFA’s six officials -including 2 VPs- who arrested on Wednesday, are charged with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, U.S. Justice Department said.
The Swiss police have arrested six soccer officials, including some high-ranking members of world governing-body FIFA, on Wednesday and detained pending extradition to the United States.
According to a statement released by The Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ), the six officials, who were not formally named, were suspected by U.S. investigators of having received or paid bribes totaling millions of dollar.
The arrests were made shortly after a dawn at a Zurich hotel where FIFA officials are staying ahead of this week’s FIFA presidential election.
The FOJ also confirmed that FIFA president Sepp Blatter was not among those arrested.
“The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York is investigating these individuals on suspicion of the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks between the early 1990s and the present day,” the statement said.
“The bribery suspects — representatives of sports media and sports promotion firms — are alleged to have been involved in schemes to make payments to the soccer functionaries — delegates of FIFA and other functionaries of FIFA sub-organizations — totaling more than US$100 million.”
The reports offer a fresh blow to the credibility of FIFA, which has suffered repeated accusations of wrongdoing over the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were awarded to Qatar and Russia respectively.
On the other side, FIFA Director of Communications and Public Affairs Walter De Gregorio said Wednesday that FIFA is the “damaged party” if there was corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.
FIFA appointed an independent investigator to look into the allegations and though a summary of his report found some wrongdoing on the part of the Qatari and Russian bid committees, FIFA’s ethics judge concluded it was not enough to question the entire process.
