May 28 – Former Brazilian football strongman Marco Polo Del Nero (pictured) has lost his appeal against a life ban for bribery and corruption.
The FIFA Appeal Committee confirmed on Monday that it would uphold the decision taken by FIFA’s Ethics Committee in 2017 to ban the 78-year-old Brazilian from all football-related activities and order him to pay a fine of CHF1 million.
“The investigation against Mr Del Nero concerned, inter alia, schemes in which he received bribes in exchange for his role in awarding contracts to companies for the media and marketing rights to various football tournaments, including the CONMEBOL Copa América and Copa Libertadores and the CBF Copa do Brasil,” FIFA said.
Del Nero was initially suspended by FIFA in December 2017 after being charged by the US authorities with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
His predecessors Ricardo Teixeira and Jose Maria Marin were also indicted on similar charges as part of a global investigation by the US department of justice.
Del Nero and Teixeira have not been extradited while Marin was found guilty by a New York court and sentenced to four years in prison last August.
Del Nero was in Zurich at the time of the original May 2015, spate of arrests that lifted the lid on the FIFA-gate scandal but rapidly returned to Brazil, which has no extradition treaty with the US, when the FBI and Swiss police swooped.
He was later indicted himself but has remained in Brazil ever since, maintaining his innocence despite a string of charges against him.
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