Guilty plea possible from El Salvador ex-soccer chief in FIFA corruption probe
The former president of El Salvador’s soccer federation may
enter a guilty plea next Monday over his alleged role in a sprawling corruption
probe surrounding FIFA and other soccer governing bodies, court records show.
A change-of-plea hearing has been scheduled in the U.S.
District Court in Brooklyn for Reynaldo Vasquez, the former president of the
Federacion Salvadorena de Futbol (FESFUT), or the Salvadoran Football
Federation.
Vasquez, who led FESFUT in 2009 and 2010, had in January
pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and
money laundering.
U.S. prosecutors have said Vasquez accepted bribes from a
company called Media World, in exchange for helping arrange media rights to
qualifier matches for the 2014 World Cup.
He was also accused of involvement in a bribery scheme to
arrange friendly matches involving the men’s national soccer teams of El
Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
A lawyer for Vasquez did not immediately respond to requests
for comment. Vasquez’s plea was not discussed at a Tuesday conference
concerning several defendants before U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen in
Brooklyn.
Vasquez was arrested in December 2015 after first being
charged. He was extradited in January from El Salvador, where he had been
serving an eight-year sentence for fraud.
FIFA banned Vasquez for life and fined him 500,000 Swiss
francs in October 2019 after an internal ethics committee found him guilty of
bribery.
Since the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled the corruption
probe in 2015, more than 40 defendants have been criminally charged, and at
least 30 have pleaded guilty.
Two defendants, former Brazilian soccer chief Jose Maria
Marin and former CONMEBOL head Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay, were convicted at
trial in 2017.
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