CBF President Marco Polo del Nero, his predecessor Ricardo Teixeira and his predecessor José Maria Marin have been named by US Attorney General Loretta Lynch corruption charges this week. CONMEBOL President Juan Ángel Napout and head of CONCACAF Alfredo Hawit were both arrested in dawn raids conducted by Swiss officials and guided by US authorities at a hotel in Zurich on Thursday morning.
Sixteen officials have been charged by the US Department of Justice, Marin, del Nero and Teixeira amongst them, on charges of bribery and corruption as crisis continues to engulf FIFA. Del Nero chose not to attend the Copa do Brasil final between Palmeiras and Santos last night in São Paulo. Teixeira was CBF President between 1989 until 2012.
Seven FIFA officials were arrested during dawn raids in May 2015, including another former CBF President José Maria Marin. The three men were named by Lynch in a press conference on Thursday.
According to the 240 page document published by the US courts, the businessman José Hawilla, president of Traffic, agreed to pay annual fees of R $ 2 million, which was divided between Teixeira, Marin and Del Nero, for facilitation agreements on rights broadcasts of Copa do Brasil games between 2013 and 2022.
The document says that the parties "knowingly conspired and created a scheme to defraud FIFA and the CBF […] through a bribery scheme, obtaining money and property by means of fraudulent pretexts." Del Nero, Marin and Teixeira are also cited in the case of bribes paid by the company Datisa the broadcast rights of the Copa America 2013 and other future issues
Del Nero has been under investigation by the FBI for months. The owner of Traffic, José Hawilla has apparently come to a plea bargain with the US courts to avoid prison. Lynch alleged that Traffic, del Nero, Teixeira and Marin "came together to defraud FIFA and the CBF." Lynch concluded that, "Now we are working to bring these two people to the US for trial. These charges also increase the cases of corruption that we have seen in May and the plan that runs from 1991 to today."
