By Andrew Warshaw
June 2 – Former CONMEBOL powerbroker Nicolas Leoz has been placed under house arrest in his native Paraguay as the FIFA corruption scandal snares yet another alleged culprit.
The Paraguayan foreign ministry said it had received correspondence from the United States Embassy requesting Leoz’s arrest and seeking his extradition.
Leoz, now 86, is the oldest official to be detained in the spate of arrests prompted by the Justice Department indictment concerning multi-million dollar corruption over two generations among football leaders and marketing companies in north and south America.
Leoz, president of CONMEBOL from 1986 until 2013, was one of those caught up in the infamous ISL bribery scandal of 14 years ago which, like the current investigation, involved marketing rights for World Cups. He was too sick to travel to Zurich where seven other arrests took place last week.
The US government has 60 days to submit documentation to support the extradition request. During that time, Leoz can remain under house arrest since the Paraguayan criminal code prevents custody for people aged more than 70. The charges have been revealed as “conspiracy to plan or engage in organised crime with fraudulent intent.”
Two years ago Leoz suddenly quit CONMEBOL and the FIFA executive committee through ill-health just before being cited for having taken massive World Cup kickbacks in his dealings with ISL. Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo took over as acting president of CONMEBOL but he, too, was on the US wanted list last week and was among those apprehended in Switzerland.
The US Justice Department indictment described Leoz as being in a position “to use his power and influence to unlawfully enrich himself.”
“Beginning in 1991 two generations of soccer officials including the then president of CONCACAF (Jack Warner) and the South American football confederation CONMEBOL (Nicolas Leoz) used their positions of trust to solicit bribes from sports marketeers in exchange for the commercial rights to their tournaments,” the indictment says. “They did this time after time, year after year, tournament after tournament.”
Meanwhile, South American football’s second most powerful official says the bribery scandal surrounding FIFA puts into question next year’s Centennial Copa America tournament scheduled to be played in the United States. Jose Luis Meiszner, Conmebol’s secretary general, told a radio station in Buenos Aires: “Today one has to question the possibility of playing this tournament.”
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