[Breaking news update at 11:30 p.m. PT]
FIFA’s Ethics Committee has banned 11 individuals from soccer-related activities amid U.S. allegations of corruption, FIFA said. Several of the banned individuals were named in a Wednesday indictment outlining corruption allegations.
[Breaking news update at 11:25 p.m. PT]
Responding to allegations of corruption within FIFA, European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, said its member associations should consider whether to attend the upcoming FIFA World Congress, which the organization said “should be postponed, with new FIFA presidential elections to be organized within the next six months.”
[Original story published at 11:18 p.m. PT]
The next step in the FIFA corruption investigation is extradition, whereby federal officials will attempt to bring suspects to the United States to face allegations they arranged bribes at meetings on U.S. soil, employed the U.S. banking system in conveying the bribes and created documents to cloak their activity, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.
“In short, these individuals, through these organizations, engaged in bribery to decide who would televise games, where the games would be held and who would run the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide,” she told reporters.
Among the decisions allegedly sullied by corruption, Lynch said, were the “sponsorship of the Brazilian national soccer team by a major U.S. sportswear company,” the 2011 FIFA presidential election and the placement of the 2010 World Cup.
“Around 2004, bidding began for the opportunity to host the 2010 World Cup, which was ultimately awarded to South Africa, the first time the tournament would be held on the African continent. But even for this historic event, FIFA executives and others corrupted the process by using bribes to influence the hosting decision,” she said.
Lynch spoke to reporters in New York hours after the Justice Department announced the unsealing of a 47-count indictment in a federal court in Brooklyn that detailed charges against 14 people for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.
The most serious are the racketeering charges, which allege that the officials turned soccer “into a criminal enterprise,” she said.
The complexity of the investigation she described was evident by the federal officials accompanying her, including a U.S. attorney, FBI Director James Comey and Richard Weber, head of the IRS Criminal Investigation division.
“This really is the World Cup of fraud, and today we are issuing FIFA a red card,” Weber said.
FIFA officials are accused of taking bribes totaling more than $150 million and in return providing “lucrative media and marketing rights” to soccer tournaments as kickbacks over the past 24 years.
“The defendants fostered a culture of corruption and greed that created an uneven playing field for the biggest sport in the world,” Comey said in a news release. “Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA.”
The indictment unsealed Wednesday “is the beginning of our work, not the end” of an effort to rid global soccer of corruption, said Kelly Currie, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Arrests
In addition to the U.S. probe into corruption that Lynch earlier called “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted,” soccer’s powerful governing body also finds itself on the end of a Swiss investigation into World Cup bidding.
Swiss authorities raided FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich on Wednesday, the same day they announced an investigation into the last two awarded World Cup bids — to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 — both of which have been under fire since the moment they were announced in 2010.
But the day’s more definitive and, right now, damning action came out of the United States.
Seven people were arrested Wednesday in Zurich with help from Swiss authorities, Lynch said. Among them was Jeffrey Webb, a FIFA vice president and head of CONCACAF, the FIFA-affiliated governing body for North America and the Caribbean.
Webb “used his position of trust to solicit bribes from sports marketing executives,” Currie said.
Authorities executed a search warrant at CONCACAF’s Florida office Wednesday morning, Lynch said.
Video from CNN affiliate WPLG showed people wearing FBI and police clothing carrying empty boxes into the Miami Beach building.
The majority of those arrested are contesting extradition to the U.S., Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice said in a statement. Though Lynch cited seven arrests, the FOJ statement mentioned only six.
“The FOJ will now ask the USA to submit formal extradition requests within the 40-day period provided for in the bilateral extradition treaty. Extradition proceedings will be resumed as soon as these requests have been received,” it said in a statement.
If any suspect agrees to “simplified extradition proceedings” — and one defendant has expressed such an interest — “the person concerned may be handed over to the US authorities immediately,” the Federal Office of Justice said.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter is not one of those arrested or facing charges by U.S. authorities, but he was among those investigated.
Asked if the U.S. investigation had cleared Blatter, Lynch told reporters, “I’m not able to comment further on Mr. Blatter’s status.” Officials said earlier Wednesday that the investigation into Blatter’s possible involvement continues.
The cloud of alleged wrongdoing won’t change Blatter’s plans to travel to Canada, which has an extradition agreement with the United States, said FIFA spokesman Walter De Gregorio.
Election looms
Nor will the specter of a scandal stop executives from soccer’s scandal-plagued governing body from gathering Friday to possibly elect Blatter to a fifth term, despite questions raised by Greg Dyke, the head of Britain’s Football Association, in light of Wednesday’s developments.
The plans for future World Cups in Qatar, which has been dogged by criticism for its treatment of foreign workers rushing to build stadiums, and Russia are still on as well, De Gregorio said.
Yet Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, one of those challenging Blatter for FIFA’s presidency, said Wednesday, “We cannot continue with the crisis.”
“FIFA needs leadership that governs, guides and protects our national associations,” said Ali, who has in the past blasted what he calls FIFA’s culture of intimidation. “Leadership that accepts responsibility for its actions and does not pass blame. Leadership that restores confidence in the hundreds of millions of football fans around the world.”
De Gregorio scarcely mentioned the U.S. indictment at his news conference, though he did put a positive spin on the Swiss investigation.
“This for FIFA is good,” he said. “It is not good in terms of image, and it’s not good in terms of reputation, but in terms of cleaning up, in terms of everything that we did in the last four years.”
This assessment was shared by others around the globe, albeit for different reasons. They include those, like English football legend and broadcaster Gary Lineker, who has long ripped FIFA as self-serving and corrupt.
“It’s been in Ohio as early as the mid-1850s at least, brought in as an ornamental plant because of its unique foliage and white flowers,” Gardner said. “It was actually planted in people’s landscaping, and it has been spreading.”
“This is extraordinary! FIFA is imploding,” Lineker said. “The best thing that could possibly happen to the beautiful game.”
Stan Collymore, a former member of England’s national team who thinks his country and the United States should boycott altogether, said it’s a good thing that Washington got involved in FIFA’s business.
“The United States is the only nation who can tackle FIFA,” he tweeted. “Well done Attorney General and DOJ!!”