By Samindra Kunti
June 30 – The former CBF president Ricardo Teixeira has called the Garcia report “inconclusive” and postulated, facing a US indictment against him, that Brazil is a safe haven.
“Is there anywhere safer than Brazil?” Teixeira asked in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo. “What am I running from if I am not accused of anything? Do you know that everything they accuse me of abroad is not a crime in Brazil.”
Teixeira became president of the Brazilian Football Confederation in January 1989 and resigned in March 2012, citing health reasons. The late Joao Havelange had always propped up Teixeira’s steep rise in the game. The first global powerbroker in football always ensured his son-in-law sat at the top table in Zurich at FIFA’s HQ.
For 22 years Teixeira led the CBF. In July 2012 a Swiss prosecutor’s report revealed that during their tenure on FIFA’s Executive Committee Havelange and Teixeira took more than $41 million in bribes in connection with the award of World Cup marketing rights.
Today Teixeira is indicted in the US and he hasn’t left Brazil out of fear of getting arrested. The former CBF strongman rarely appears in public anymore, but he spoke out after the publication of the Garcia report earlier this week.
Teixeira ridiculed the Garcia report, claiming it was full of ‘ifs’ and ‘may haves’. He also denied that he took expensive gifts. “I didn’t read it,” said Teixeira. “I am not going to read a report that isn’t conclusive. Does it say that I took money here or there? It’s only ‘could have’. Let me tell you something so you can understand: I didn’t receive gifts. I didn’t receive gifts. I didn’t receive gifts.”
During his investigation Garcia was unable to contact Teixeira, but the report did question the Brazilian’s conduct as a FIFA Executive Committee member, a position he held for 18 years.
Teixeira also scoffed at the idea of taking a plea bargain and cooperating with U.S authorities. Some former FIFA officials have taken this path, but the Brazilian remains combative, if not outright impervious to outside pressure.
“There is no such agreement,” said Teixeira. “It’s ridiculous to say that I called Sandro [Rosell] to find a place to live [reports in the Spanish press suggest this].”
Teixeira and Rosell enjoyed a strong relationship and Spanish justice have accused the pair of dividing €15 million of TV rights money from Brazil’s friendly matches between them. Rosell is currently imprisoned in Spain without bail.
“I never received money from Sandro’s company,” said Texeira.
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