A top
member of FIFA has traveled to the US from Switzerland to face graft charges.
While Swiss officials declined to name who has been extradited, sources
indicated it was former CONCACAF chief Jeffrey Webb.
Deutsche Welle, 16 July 2015
The Swiss
government announced on Thursday that it had extradited a FIFA official to the
United States due to that country's corruption investigation into several
high-ranking members of the international soccer governing body.
"The
first of the seven FIFA officials being held in custody in Switzerland was
extradited to the US on July 15," said the Swiss Federal Office of
Justice, adding that "he was handed over to a three-man US police escort
in Zurich who accompanied him on the flight to New York."
Webb faces charges of bribery and kickbacks in exchange for media deals in the US |
Though the
justice office declined to name who had been sent to the US, a source told
Reuters news agency last week that Jeffrey Webb, a former FIFA vice president
and head of the CONCACAF soccer federation, had agreed to go to the US to face
charges.
The other
six officials facing extradition to the US are, like Webb, involved either in
FIFA's North and Central American branch CONCACAF, or in its South American
counterpart, CONMEBOL.
Webb was
arrested at the end of May as part of a sweeping anti-graft probe in the US.
Switzerland is running a separate, but related probe tied larged to the votes
awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar, as well
as money laundering and racketeering. Most, but not all, of the US
investigations pre-date the 2010 successes for Russia and Qatar.
The scandal
prompted FIFA's President Sepp Blatter, who has led the organization for 17
years, to announce his plans to resign at a special convention of the
organization in 2016, just days after he was re-elected.
es/msh (AFP, Reuters)
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