By Mark Baber
June 5 – Following the arrest of its former president Rafael Esquivel in Switzerland, military intelligence raided the headquarters of the Federación Venezolana de Fútbol (FVF).
Esquivel is accused by US investigators as having accepted bribes as President of the FVF and in his role as vice president on the CONMEBOL executive committee. The allegations include recently receiving bribes for helping Datisa in acquiring media rights for the Copa América and Centenario tournaments, as well as receiving payments from Traffic for a period stretching back to the 1990s.
According to the indictment, in 2007, when Venezuela hosted the Copa América, Esquivel “solicited a bribe payment of approximately $1 million from Traffic in exchange for Esquivel’s continued official support of Traffic’s position as exclusive holder of the marketing rights to the Copa América and of Traffic’s ability to commercialize the rights to the 2007 edition.”
In a statement, Venezuela’s Public Prosecutor’s Office said that military intelligence agents had gone into the FVF office in Caracas “as part of the investigation into alleged irregularities” by Esquivel.
Esquivel, who is now 68 years old, is currently detained in Zurich facing extradition to the US. On Tuesday, Venezuela’s public prosecution body revealed that it had frozen all of Esquivel’s bank accounts following a request from the US Department of Justice.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is wary of the US investigation, which he sees as possibly part of a US geo-political manoeuvre designed to undermine Russia and Qatar, but he also supports investigations into corruption in football, saying in his weekly address on Tuesday that: “As head of state I totally support a complete investigation of the Venezuelan Football Federation, and let’s take advantage of it to carry out a constituent process (citizen consultation).”
Maduro has also blasted FIFA as a corporation which relies on a system of “slavery and exploitation” and suggested footballers such as Diego Maradona should be in charge of the institution as opposed to business executives telling his audience that: “Diego Armando Maradona has been denouncing FIFA for decades, they’ve threatened him and they’ve laughed at him.”
Despite the Venezuelan president’s support it would probably take the ‘hand of God’ to raise Maradona’s integrity rating to one that the rest of the world would take seriously.
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