Attorney General Loretta Lynch accused soccer’s world governing body Wednesday of deep-rooted corruption that allowed members and related firms to enrich themselves through bribery and kickbacks “year after year, tournament after tournament.”

Lynch outlined U.S. complaints against the sport’s powerful overseers, known as FIFA, hours after a stunning series of indictments and arrests, including a roundup in which Swiss authorities led seven top FIFA officials from a luxury hotel in Zurich.

At least one suspect was shielded from journalists by a white sheet as he boarded a waiting car.

Moments earlier in New York, the Justice Department had unsealed a 47-count indictment charging 14 world soccer figures, including officials of FIFA, with racketeering, bribery, money laundering and fraud totaling more than $150 million. FIFA is the French abbreviation for the International Federation of Association Football, the global governing body of soccer.

Four other people, as well as two sports marketing companies, have already pleaded guilty and are likely to be cooperating.

The accusations, and hints that investigations may not be finished, reverberated around the world with a mixture of knowing nods by the many critics of FIFA’s immense clout and jaw-dropping shock from those who believed FIFA’s vast influence made it virtually untouchable.

Among the “alleged schemes,” said the Justice Department, were kickbacks to FIFA officials by executives and companies involved in soccer marketing and “bribes and kickbacks in connection” with “the selection of the host country for the 2010 World Cup [in South Africa] and the 2011 FIFA presidential election.”
Lynch said the alleged wrongdoing tarnished FIFA’s mandate to “uphold the rules and keep soccer honest.”

The American probe, coupled with a separate but related Swiss investigation, delve into the high-profile, but often shadowy, world of FIFA deal-making and decisions, including picking the World Cup hosts.

According to the Swiss Justice Ministry, six of the seven FIFA officials arrested in Zurich plan to fight extradition to the United States. One of them agreed to speedy extradition and is expected to be handed over to U.S. authorities soon. The Swiss did not name any of the detained officials, but the U.S. Justice Department said the seven men arrested included two current FIFA vice presidents. The seven each face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

While FIFA is based in Zurich and has a worldwide presence, the U.S. charges stem from alleged corruption linked the federation’s regional groups in the Western Hemisphere and involve other U.S. interests such as banks.

Lynch alleged that those implicated in the indictments “corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and to enrich themselves” as far back as 1991.

“They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament,” she told a news conference in Brooklyn.

Lynch said the investigation found that one FIFA official received $10 million in bribes.

Richard Weber, chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters: “This really is the World Cup of fraud, and today we’re issuing FIFA a red card.”

Lynch and other U.S. officials, including FBI director James B. Comey, also suggested that the indictment may not end the investigations into FIFA corruption, long rumored around the world, but rarely pursued by authorities on a major scale until now.

That keeps open speculation of probes reaching higher and wider into the organization, whose 79-year-old president, Swiss-born Sepp Blatter, wields influence on par with a head of state or top diplomat in some parts of the world.

Blatter, who is not implicated in the indictments, faces reelection Friday and is expected to win handily over a lone opponent despite the fallout from the charges.

Swiss prosecutors, in a related announcement, said they had opened criminal proceedings against unidentified individuals on suspicion of mismanagement and money laundering related to the awarding of rights to host the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The Swiss probe includes “electronic data and documents” seized at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, the Swiss prosecutor’s office said.

Swiss police said they will question at least 10 FIFA executive committee members who took part in the World Cup votes in December 2010. But FIFA said it had no plans to revisit the awards to Qatar and Russia.

The soccer federation of Brazil, the host country of the 2014 World Cup, welcomed the investigation, but Russia accused the United States of an illegal overreach.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Moscow has “a lot of issues” with Wednesday’s arrests.

“This is another case of illegal extraterritorial application of U.S. laws,” he said on the ministry’s Web site. “We hope that this will in no way be used to tarnish the international football organization in general and its decisions.” He said Russia urges the United States “to stop trying to administer justice far beyond its borders . . . and to follow the generally accepted international legal procedures.”

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, a member of the FIFA executive committee, told the Associated Press, meanwhile, that Russia won the right to host the 2018 World Cup fair and square and that “we’ve got nothing to hide.”

The allegations of corruption in the most popular sport on the planet brought little surprise but left many wondering whether the charges could rise to higher levels in FIFA and prompt other probes.

For years, a shadow has hung over international soccer. Again and again, allegations have swirled around the sport’s organizing body, centering on accusations of rampant bribery and match-fixing.

The Justice Department said its charges “include U.S. and South American sports marketing executives who are alleged to have systematically paid and agreed to pay well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments.”

Jeffrey Webb and Jack Warner, respectively current and former FIFA vice presidents and presidents of CONCACAF, the continental confederation under FIFA headquartered in the United States, are among the soccer officials charged with “racketeering and bribery offenses,” the Justice Department said. Webb, 50, is a citizen of the Cayman Islands, and Warner, 72, is from Trinidad and Tobago.

A search warrant was executed early Wednesday at the continental confederation’s office in Miami, according to the Justice Department.

“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States,” Lynch said in a statement before the news conference. “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.”

Guilty pleas, according to Justice, have come from Charles Blazer, 70, the American former general secretary of CONCACAF and a former U.S. representative on FIFA’s executive committee; Jose Hawilla, 71, the Brazilian owner and founder of Traffic Group, a sports marketing conglomerate based in Brazil; and two sons of former FIFA vice president Jack Warner: Daryan Warner, 48, a citizen of Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago, and Daryll Warner, 40, who has dual U.S. and Trinidadian nationality. In addition, two of Hawilla’s companies, Traffic Sports International and Traffic Sports USA, based in Florida, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, the Justice Department said.

Those indicted, in addition to Webb and Warner, include:

— Eduardo Li, 56, of Costa Rica, the current FIFA executive committee president and president of the Costa Rican soccer federation.

— Julio Rocha, 64, of Nicaragua, a current FIFA development officer and former head of the Central American Football Union.

— Costas Takkas, 58, a British citizen who served as an attache and former general secretary of the Cayman Islands Football Association.

— Eugenio Figueredo, 83, a U.S.-Uruguayan national who is the current FIFA vice president and an executive committee member.

— Rafael Esquivel, 68, of Venezuela, the president of the Venezuelan soccer federation.

— Jose Maria Marin, 83, of Brazil, a member of the FIFA organizing committee for the Olympic soccer tournaments.

— Nicolas Leoz, , 86, a former FIFA executive committee member from Paraguay.

— Alejandro Burzaco, 50, an Argentina sports marketing executive based in Argentina.

— Aaron Davidson, 44, of the United States, president of Traffic Sports USA.

— Hugo Jinkis, 70, and Mariano Jinkis, 40, Argentine principals of Full Play Group, a sports marketing business based in Argentina.

— Jose Margulies, 75, of Brazil, controlling principal of Valente Corp. and Somerton Ltd.

The Justice Department said the seven arrested Wednesday in Zurich were: Webb, Figueredo, Li, Rocha, Takkas, Esquivel and Marin.

The pre-dawn operation and the U.S. indictments were the culmination of a three-year international investigation into the powerful soccer organization. They follow months of intensifying speculation and years of corruption accusations against FIFA.

The FBI, IRS and Justice Department are all involved in the investigation, which is being led by the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The arrests come just two days before FIFA’s presidential elections, in which the current president Blatter is widely seen as coasting to victory.

Earlier this week, after dropping out of the election race, former Portuguese soccer star Luis Figo called Blatter a “dictator.”

The selection of Russia and Qatar for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, respectively, were already controversial enough without being connected to corruption allegations. Critics have questioned the decision to award Russia the World Cup when the country is currently occupying Crimea, for example.

Qatar, meanwhile, has come under criticism for its treatment of migrant workers. A report commissioned by Qatar suggested a host of reforms, including blacklisting contractors found to have cut corners on safety. It also noted that nearly 1,000 workers from Nepal, India and Bangladesh, countries that supply the bulk of the migrant labor force in the Persian Gulf nation, died in Qatar in 2012 and 2013. About a quarter of the deaths were blamed on heart problems, while several dozen fatalities occurred on job sites.

Earlier this month, critics demanded that World Cup sponsors pull out of Qatar over work conditions. And on Saturday, the Nepali government said its citizens had not been allowed to leave Qatar to attend funerals for family members killed in last month’s devastating earthquake, which left more than 8,000 people dead.

Blatter’s remaining opponent for the FIFA leadership, Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein of Jordan, has campaigned on a promise to clean up the organization. Earlier this week, he announced that he had been approached by someone offering to secure votes in exchange for money. Hussein said he took the information to the police. (Source: The Washington Post

Story Date: May 28, 2015