El Salvador ex-football chief arrested in FIFA corruption probe

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – El Salvador’s former national football chief, Reynaldo Vásquez, was arrested Wednesday as part of a U.S. probe into multimillion-dollar corruption at FIFA, a senior Salvadoran police official said.

Boss of Salvador’s FESFUT football federation between June 2009 and July 2010, Vásquez was one of 16 people indicted by the U.S. this month on charges of taking bribes in exchange for attributing broadcast rights to matches organized by football’s world body FIFA.

He was apprehended in a seaside residential complex south of the capital by elite police officers.

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“He offered no resistance at the time of his arrest” and was now being detained in a cell in the capital usually used for suspected drug traffickers, the deputy director of police, Howard Cotto, told a news conference.

El Salvador’s Supreme Court has given initial approval to a U.S. request for his extradition, but that could yet be delayed given legal action under way in Salvadoran courts against Vásquez.

The 59-year-old businessman is notably accused in his country of failing to pay social security charges for employees in his furniture company, and also for aggravated fraud.