The former chairman of an Argentina-based sports marketing business, one of 14 people indicted in a corruption case that has rattled the soccer world's governing body FIFA, pleaded not guilty in US federal court on Friday.
Comparing FIFA to the mafia is almost insulting to the mafia, a US senator said, turning up the heat on football's corruption-tainted world governing body to reform. Richard Blumenthal made the remark at a Senate subcommittee hearing scrutinizing FIFA, after US authorities in May indicted 14 people - including top football officials over tens of millions of dollars of alleged bribes for media rights contracts.
Argentine judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi has approved the arrest of three Argentine business leaders named in a corruption scandal engulfing world football and facing US extradition requests, though he acknowledged he did not know if they were in the country. The businessmen were considered fugitives from justice on Thursday after Interpol was unable to locate them at their residences.
The United States Department of Justice brought charges on racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering on 14 FIFA and sports marketing officials. Dubbed the “World Cup of corruption” by Richard Weber, chief of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation unit, the charges are the result of an investigation from the U.S. District Attorney’s office in Eastern New York.
Chuck Blazer, once the most powerful man in US soccer, was an FBI informant used to spy on Fifa, the New York Daily News reports. Blazer, who is now suffering from cancer, secretly recorded conversations with officials he arranged to meet at his London hotel during the 2012 Olympics, the report said.
FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb has called for Michael Garcia’s report into the corruption-tarnished World Cup bidding process to be published. The CONCACAF president made his declaration at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester on Tuesday.
Argentina's First Division is second strongest tournament in the world after Spain, according to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) July release.