FIFA Soccer officials arrested at top Swiss hotel in corruption probe

Wed, May 27th 2015, 06:04 PM

ZURICH (AP) - The U.S. government launched an attack on what it called deep-seated and brazen corruption in soccer's global governing body Wednesday, pulling FIFA executives out of a luxury Swiss hotel to face racketeering charges and raiding regional offices in Miami.

Swiss officials also invaded FIFA headquarters, seizing records and computers to investigate whether the decisions to award World Cups to Russia and Qatar were rigged.

Scandals and rumors of corruption have dogged FIFA throughout the 17-year reign of its president, Sepp Blatter, but he was not named in either investigation. He is scheduled to stand Friday for re-election to a fifth, four-year term, and the organization said the vote would go ahead as planned, despite the latest turmoil.

FIFA also ruled out a revote of the World Cup bids won by Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.

"We welcome the actions and the investigations by the U.S. and Swiss authorities and believe that it will help to reinforce measures that FIFA has already taken to root out any wrongdoing in football," Blatter said in a statement. The organization said it was cooperating fully with the investigation.

Some of the biggest names in soccer said they had complained for years about corruption in FIFA, which oversees the world's most popular sport and generates billions in revenue each year.

"I was treated like a crazy person," former soccer great Diego Maradona told radio station Radio La Red in Buenos Aires. "Now the FBI has told the truth."

Former Brazilian star Romario, an outspoken FIFA critic, said "someone had to eventually arrest them one day."

Authorities conducted early morning raids in Zurich at FIFA headquarters and the five-star Baur au Lac Hotel. In Miami, FBI and IRS agents carried computers and boxes out of the headquarters of CONCACAF, the governing body of North and Central America and the Caribbean, whose past and current presidents were among 14 defendants under indictment for corruption.

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