Federation Internationale de Football Association bans two vice-presidents amid arrest scandal

As a result, FIFA suspended vice presidents Alfredo Hawit and Juan Angel Napout for their associations with the indictments.

“I still have small problems of health but this doesn’t keep me from being before you today”, Hayatou said.

The pair, presidents of CONCACAF and CONMEBOL respectively, are both FIFA vice-presidents and were taken into custody by Swiss police following drawn raids at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, where the Executive Committee of world football’s governing body met on Thursday. Police said Jadue is being investigated for alleged money laundering and the Chilean federation is being probed for allegedly funneling its money to hire lawyers in the U.S.

A total of 16 more officials have been charged by the U.S department of Justice as of Thursday, bringing the total number of people charged to 41, according to BBC News.

Napout, from Paraguay, and Hawit, from Honduras, are resisting extradition to the US while being detained in Zurich-area jails.

Argentine nationals Jose Luis Meiszner and Eduardo Deluca, current and former secretary generals of South America’s confederation, were also charged, along with officials from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia’s Romer Osuna, member of the Federation Internationale de Football Association audit and compliance panel and former CONMEBOL treasurer. Both have already been suspended by FIFA following internal investigations and Swiss authorities have opened their own criminal inquiry into Blatter’s conduct.

Prosecutors in NY suspect the two “of accepting bribes of millions of dollars”, the FOJ statement said.

Swiss and US authorities are conducting parallel investigations of corruption in football, focusing on whether certain business contracts or the World Cup hosting rights for 2018 and 2022 were won with the help of bribery.

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 head of the Honduran football federation. Several sports marketing officers in the USA & in South America have been additionally named.

Blatter and Platini are both suspended over the issue and face sanctions from the ethics committee. Hawit also was charged with attempting to obstruct the grand jury investigation by attempting in July to corruptly influence testimony before the grand jury.

Hawit became president of CONCACAF (which encompasses North America, Central America and the Caribbean) after the last president, Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands, was indicted in May and placed under house arrest. And with the new round of indictments, the top of the executive committee could soon look very different.

Federal Bureau of Investigations New York Assistant Director in Charge, Diego Rodriguez, said the most recent wave of charges is one more step forward in the effort to level the playing field of soccer.

“RICO is the phrase you hear, which is Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization, which is basically the law set up to go after the Mafia”, Don Riddell said on CNN.