May 24 – Has Ricardo Teixeira, once one of world football’s biggest power brokers who had a seat on the FIFA executive committee and headed the local organising committee of the 2014 Brazil World Cup, struck some kind of deal with the US authorities?
Teixeira, ex-president of the Brazilian FA, was one of those indicted early in the US-led football corruption probe and has strong links to Sandro Rosell, the former Barcelona chief arrested this week by Spanish authorities as part of a money laundering investigation. The pair were close associates when Rosell was a senior executive for Nike in Brazil.
It is understood that when they detained Rosell, the Spanish authorities were acting on information received from the United States-led investigation which has seen dozens of officials implicated in North, Central and South America.
Teixeira, quit all his football positions 2012, citing medical reasons, just as it was revealed that he and his one-time father-in-law, the former FIFA president João Havelange, had used their positions to collect more than $40 million in bribes and kickbacks.
Charged in his own country with money laundering and tax evasion, Teixeira is one of the few defendants who has refused to recognise the charges against him. But unconfirmed reports in Spain say that the net is closing in on him over possible alleged collaboration with Rosell and that he might therefore have done a deal with the Department of Justice though it is unclear exactly what information he might have provided.
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