October 2 – Just like his infamous predecessor Chuck Blazer, Enrique Sanz, former general secretary Concacaf, has been banned for life for his involvement in the FifaGate scandal.
In a statement, FIFA said that 45-year-old Sanz had been handed the ban for “the negotiation of bribe payments in the scope of various bribery schemes concerning competitions organized by FIFA, Concacaf, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL)”.
Sanz was secretary general of Concacaf between 2012 and 2015, when he was dismissed amid allegations of wide-raging corruption.
Before he joined, had worked with Traffic Sports USA, the marketing company heavily implicated in the FifaGate scandal.
US federal prosecutors alleged that he arranged and took bribes linked to commercial deals for international competitions including World Cup qualifying games and the 2016 Copa America centenary tournament.
Though Sanz was never publicly charged or sentenced, unlike others in the case, prosecutors alleged he also took part in bribery schemes while working for Traffic. He was one of the informants in the US Justice Department’s case against FIFA and its officials.
For all the bad that Sanz oversaw in terms of corruption in what was an already a deeply corrupt organisation, he was undoubtedly a talented administrator and in many areas left a positive mark on a confederation that was trying to build a global presence following the oppressive corrupt rule of former president Jack Warner – that work will unfortunately be forgotten nor recognised. Perhaps his biggest contribution in the end will be seen as his co-operation in blowing the whistle on the whole FIFA scandal in the Americas. The end of his career at Concacaf and in football was marked by ill-health.
FIFA said its ethics judges charged Sanz with bribery only during his work with Concacaf.
Concacaf is now a very different organisation but is still haunted by the regime of the late Blazer, the burly American whose admissions of guilt set off the corruption scandal that heaped disgrace on FIFA as well as the regional body he ran for the best part of a generation.
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