Federation Internationale de Football Association suspends arrested officials Hawit, Napout for 90 days

The Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ), as the ministry is known, said it had ordered Zurich police to detain the two individuals “based on arrest requests submitted by the United States Department of Justice on 29 November 2015”.

CONCACAF’s executive committee also provisionally banned Hawit along with six others who were indicted.

CONMEBOL said it would “continue co-operating at all times with the investigation of authorities, and will continue deepening administrative reforms…”

ZURICH (AP) – FIFA vice presidents Juan Angel Napout and Alfredo Hawit have been banned from soccer after being indicted on bribery and racketeering charges.

Amazingly, he is now a member of Fifa’s Audit and Compliance Committee – one of Fifa’s sub-committees charged with developing reform proposals.

In 2012, Swiss prosecutors said Teixeira and Havelange took millions of dollars in bribes in the awarding of marketing rights for World Cup finals tournaments.

It said that Honduras’ Hawit and Paraguay’s Napout “are opposing their extradition” and Swiss would now request formal extradition requests from the U.S.

“The betrayal of trust set forth here is truly outrageous”, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

“The Department of Justice is committed to ending the rampant corruption we have alleged amidst the leadership of worldwide soccer, not only because of the scale of the schemes, or the brazenness and breadth of the operation required to sustain such corruption, but also because of the affront to global principles that this behavior represents”, Lynch said.

Hawit, 64, is interim president for North, Central America and Caribbean football, while Napout, 57, oversees football in the South American confederation. While some have been arrested, others have abruptly resigned from the national federations that make up the regional body and are collaborating with US authorities in exchange for a reduced sentence.

The country’s attorney general announced on Thursday that a further 16 officials, primarily from the Concacaf and Conmebol member associations, had been charged with corruption following an extensive investigation.

In May, former CONMEBOL presidents Nicolas Leoz and Eugenio Figueredo were indicted in the U.S. They were among 14 soccer officials and business executives wanted on charges of bribery, racketeering, and money laundering. Of those, 12 individuals and two sports marketing companies have already been convicted as a result of the ongoing investigation.

Blatter was provisionally suspended by Federation Internationale de Football Association on October 8 for 90 days as part of a separate investigation into a $2 million payment in 2011 to European soccer head Michel Platini, who hoped to succeed him when FIFA’s 209 member nations vote February 26. Tordin, who is an executive with Media World LLC in Miami, pleaded guilty on November 9, according to the U.S.

Aside from those charged in the United States, FIFA’s suspended president Sepp Blatter is the target of a Swiss criminal investigation.