US authorities indict 16 football officials for widespread graft.
This combination of file photos shows the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) regional officials indicted by the US - Fifa vice president and Executive Committee member Juan Ángel Napout (clockwise from top), Fifa Development Committee
Washington: The multi-million dollar corruption scandal engulfing Fifa widened Thursday with 16 people indicted by US justice officials who pledged an unremitting crackdown on an “outrageous” betrayal of trust.
The latest dramatic twist in a long-running saga began with a dawn raid on a luxury Zurich hotel where Swiss authorities arrested South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) president Juan Angel Napout, and Alfredo Hawit, head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF).
Hours later, the two appeared on a list released in Washington of 16 men — all from the same two confederations — indicted on charges of corruption. They included Ricardo Teixeira, the former head of the Brazilian Football Confederation and a former Fifa vice-president; Ariel Alvarado, a Panamanian who sits on Fifa’s disciplinary committee; and Rafael Callejas, president of Honduras 1990-1994 and former president of the Honduran football federation.
“The message 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,” US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.
Fifa’s remaining leadership approved a series of measures aimed at improving transparency and curbing the authority of the body’s much-maligned executive committee, which has emerged as an epicentre of graft.
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( Source : AFP )
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