Jorge Hidalgo, acting president of the Costa Rican Football Federation, FEDEFÚTBOL, told the website AmeliaRueda.com that U.S. prosecutors are “mistaken” and that there was nothing inappropriate about a $27,500 wire transfer cited in the indictment as proof of wrongdoing.
ZURICH, Switzerland – Sepp Blatter won a fifth term as FIFA president on Friday in a dramatic end to an angry campaign dominated by a corruption storm that engulfed the leadership of world football.
The 56-year-old president of Costa Rica’s national football federation built himself into a regional and international figure in the sport. But U.S. authorities say that with that rise came the temptations of a vast criminal conspiracy outlined in a sweeping indictment of FIFA.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter did not raise the many calls made for him to resign for Friday's election, as he opened FIFA's annual congress one day after seven top football officials were arrested as part of a U.S corruption inquiry.
As many amateur humorists on social media noted Wednesday morning, there's a certain appropriateness to the United States having been the country to articulate and disrupt alleged corruption within the governing body of international football. Here's why they can do it.
The U.S. was not successful. Instead, Qatar — a small, wealthy emirate on the Persian Gulf — became the first Arab country to be awarded the event. And almost immediately the decision to place a summer football tournament in a country where daytime temperatures in those months often exceed 120 degrees drew fierce criticism — and deep suspicion.
The acting president of the Costa Rican Football Federation (FEDEFUTBOL), Jorge Hidalgo described the news of Eduardo Li’s arrest as shocking, and “like the Turrialba Volcano finally erupted on all of us.”
Tens of millions of dollars had been discovered hidden away in offshore accounts in Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, said Richard Weber, chief of the U.S. tax agency's criminal investigation division.
NEW YORK – Once the most important man in U.S. soccer, Charles "Chuck" Blazer turned on FIFA to become the central figure in a wide-ranging graft investigation that threatened Wednesday to bring the sport's world governing body to its knees.