April 30 – Former Brazilian FA (CBF) president Marco Polo Del Nero, who had his suspension turned into a life ban for bribery and corruption by FIFA’s ethics committee last Friday, says he will appeal against the verdict even though it wouldn’t appear he has much chance of clearing his name.
Del Nero, a one-time FIFA executive committee member who was also fined CHF 1 million ($1.01 million), was one of the original ‘Zurich Seven’ indicted by the US Department of Justice in 2015 and is accused of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies linked to a series of broadcasting contracts.
Unlike many others caught up in the so-called FifaGate scandal, he has not been extradited to face charges and has remained in his native Brazil after managing to flee Switzerland just as other FIFA bigwigs were detained in that infamous wave of arrests at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich.
Despite later resigning from FIFA’s executive committee, del Nero was somehow able to continue to lead Brazil’s national federation until being provisionally suspended last December.
FIFA said Del Nero had been investigated over “schemes in which he received bribes in exchange for his role in awarding contracts to companies for the media and marketing rights to various football tournaments.”
Del Nero’s name had come up constantly in the trial of his predecessor Jose Maria Marin in New York before Christmas. Even trial judge Pamela Chen made passing comment on how del Nero could still be running Brazilian football suggesting he must have “friends in high places”.
Lawyers for Marin, who is awaiting sentence after being found guilty in December on similar charges, argued their client was a bit-part player and that it was Del Nero who made all the key decisions.
But lawyers for Del Nero said there was no evidence against him, saying in a statement that he had greeted the verdict with “surprise and indignation”.
“It’s important to emphasise that the investigation was not capable of producing any proof relating to his supposed involvement in corruption schemes,” the statement said, adding that the ethics committee had made “innumerable procedural violations” which it described as “a clear affront to the most basic principles of defence and due legal process.”
“Mr. Del Nero will appeal the decision and has the conviction that the punishment in a first instance will be reformed after the analysis of a court that is independent and not a subject of external interferences.”
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