In a dramatic widening of the Fifa corruption scandal, the Swiss police arrested two more top football officials in a dawn raid on Thursday on suspicion that they accepted millions of dollars in bribe
In a dramatic widening of the Fifa corruption scandal, the Swiss police arrested two more top football officials in a dawn raid on Thursday on suspicion that they accepted millions of dollars in bribes. The Swiss justice ministry confirmed a report that a new operation at a luxury hotel in Zurich had snapped up more Fifa officials, after a similar raid at the same spot last May sparked the unprecedented scandal that has shaken football’s world body to its core.
“The high-ranking Fifa officials are alleged to have taken the money in return for selling marketing rights in connection with football tournaments in Latin Amer-ica, as well as the World Cup qualifying matches,” the Swiss justice ministry said.
The announcement came after the New York Times reported the fresh arrests, as Fifa’s leadership gathered in Zurich for talks on a reform package aimed at repairing world football’s tainted global image.
The Times said the Swiss police entered the five-star Baur au Lac Hotel in central Zurich at around 6 am on Thursday.
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice, as the ministry is known, said it had ordered the Zurich police to detain the two “based on arrest requests submitted by the United States department of justice on 29 November 2015”.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, suspects the two “of accepting bribes of millions of dollars,” the FOJ statement said. “Some of the offences were agreed and prepared in the USA. Payments were also processed via US banks,” the FOJ further said.
FIFA told AFP in an email that it “became aware of the actions taken today by the US Department of Justice.”
It vowed to “continue to cooperate fully with the US investigation as permitted by Swiss law as well as with the investigation being led by the Swiss Office of the Attorney General.” The FIFA corruption scandal has seen the organisation’s longtime president Sepp Blatter suspended and targeted in a criminal investigation in Switzerland, while Michel Platini, once seen as his likely successor, is also suspended and facing a life ban from football.
A source inside FIFA told AFP that the two arrested officials were South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) president Juan Angel Napout, and Alfredo Hawit, head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF).
The FOJ did not name the two arrested individuals, but said it would do so by the day’s end.
