Geneva: One of the seven Fifa officials arrested in Zurich as part of a corruption probe has been extradited to the United States, the Swiss Justice Ministry said on Thursday. The Federal Office of Justice said the man, whom it did not identify, was extradited on Wednesday. “He was handed over to a three-man US Police escort in Zurich who accompanied him on the flight to New York,” the ministry said in a statement.
The official agreed last week to be extradited, unlike six others who are fighting extradition. The extradited man is accused of “accepting bribes totaling millions of dollars in connection with the sale of marketing rights to various sports marketing firms and keeping the money for himself,” the Swiss justice office said last week.
All seven men were arrested on May 27 in dawn raids on a luxury hotel in Zurich by Swiss federal police at the request of American federal agencies. They include Fifa vice president Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands and former Fifa vice president Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay. Both have been suspended from football duty by Fifa’s ethics committee.
A total of 14 men nine football officials and five marketing executives were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in May, and a further four had their guilty pleas unsealed. Meanwhile, US senator Richard Blumenthal said comparing Fifa to the mafia is “almost insulting to the mafia,” turning up the heat on football’s corruption-tainted world governing body to reform. Swiss authorities are also investigating the hugely controversial award of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.
