Swiss authorities approve extradition of Venezuelan o

Last week, the Swiss authorities approved a United States extradition request for Eugenio Figueredo, a senior football official from Uruguay, but the 83-year old former vice president of the South American Football Confederation, can appeal against the decision.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice charged more than a dozen Federation Internationale de Football Association officials and soccer executives of racketeering and wire fraud in what it termed a “24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of worldwide soccer”.

He has 30 days to appeal against the decision by the Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to allow extradition, the FOJ said in a statement. FIFA has since suspended him from all football duty.

“Figueredo is accused of receiving bribes worth millions of dollars from a Uruguayan sports marketing company in connection with the sale of marketing rights to the Copa America tournaments in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2023”, the Swiss ministry said.

The OFJ said that it was satisfied that all conditions for extradition had been met. In particular, it was comfortable that the description of the alleged crimes in the U.S. extradition request are punishable under Swiss law.

Both are suspected of having accepted bribes for personal gain while in office.

Esquivel was among seven officials involved in a mass arrest on a USA warrant in Zurich, Switzerland, on May 27.

Despite the arrests, the presidential election went ahead at the Congress and Blatter won a fifth mandate, although the 79-year-old then announced just four days later that he would be standing down, with a new election scheduled for February.

They are: Jose Maria Marin of Brazil, who headed the 2014 World Cup organizing committee; Eduardo Li of Costa Rica; Julio Rocha, a Federation Internationale de Football Association development staffer from Nicaragua; and Costas Takkas, a British aide to Webb.