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29 March 2024

Fifa corruption scandal: Football rocked as 7 top officials held

The dawn detention of several FIFA leaders and a corruption raid on its headquarters have rocked world football's governing body. (AFP)

Published
By AFP

Latin America is the cradle of some of football's greatest stars, but the arrest of top Fifa officials from the region in an international corruption sting Wednesday underlines the ugly side of its 'beautiful game.'

Of the seven football officials hauled in by Swiss police in a dawn raid at a Zurich luxury hotel, five are Latin American, including Uruguay's Eugenio Figueredo, executive vice president of Fifa, and Brazil's Jose Maria Marin, a member of the Fifa organizing committee for Olympic football.

Paraguayan Nicolas Leoz, a former Fifa executive committee member and ex-president of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), is also facing charges but has so far avoided arrest because he is in Paraguay, where he was hospitalized after hearing the news.

Figueredo and Leoz, both in their 80s, are among the last members of a generation led by former Fifa president Joao Havelange of Brazil and the late Julio Grondona of Argentina, his ally, who rose to some of the most powerful positions in football and defied wide-ranging corruption allegations to stay there for decades.

Wednesday's bad publicity for Latin America's beloved game was met not so much with shock as with knowing shakes of the head in the region, which lives and breathes football but is long used to corruption and dirty deals by the powerful figures who run it.

Argentine great Diego Maradona said the news made him feel vindicated after 15 years of condemning graft in football.

"I'm enjoying this, it's something I have been saying for a long time. They said I was crazy. Today the FBI spoke the truth," he said.

Maradona, who has lobbied against giving Fifa's current president Sepp Blatter a fifth term in the body's elections Friday, warned the world football supremo could be next.

In typically brash style, the 1986 World Cup champion vowed to personally crack down on corruption at world football's governing body.

"When we get to Fifa, the good guys are going to stay. The bad guys, I'm going to personally take care of giving them a kick in the you-know-what," he said.

It is a dream shared by other former stars from the region, such as Brazil's Romario and Paraguay's Jose Luis Chilavert, who were both part of a failed movement by ex-players to win the top executive jobs at the organizations that govern South American football.

The movement's goal was to put an end to "the extravagances of Havelange, of Blatter. The chief of the mafia, Grondona, is no longer here," said ex-Paraguay captain Chilavert, who played most of his club career in Argentina, where Grondona was the all-powerful head of the Argentine Football Association.

"They became millionaires thanks to football while the players got poorer and poorer," he said.

One of the main points of criticism of the business of football in Latin America is the widespread practice of third-party ownership, in which investors buy shares of a player's rights and profit from his eventual transfer.

Critics say the practice breeds corruption, and Fifa has announced plans to ban it.

'Corrupt thieves'

Former Brazil star turned senator Romario, a vociferous critic of Marin, also welcomed the sweeping US and Swiss crackdowns.

"Many of those who are corrupt and thieves who harm football have been detained," he said.

"A thief has to go to jail. I congratulate the FBI and particularly the Swiss police for their actions."

Marin, a former politician, oversaw the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He remains a vice president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and is a member of the organizing committee for next year's Rio Olympics.

The CBF said it "fully supports" the corruption investigation.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff also backed it, saying "all Cups" need to be investigated for graft in the awarding of hosting rights, including Brazil's last year.

According to Brazilian media reports, the US Justice Department plans to do just that.

"We are completely calm. The government supports the investigations as above all we want clarity and for these investigations to bring solutions," said Brazilian Sports Minister George Hilton.