By Andrew Warshaw
March 17 – The backlash against FIFA’s restitution request for tens of millions of dollars in order to restore its battered reputation and put it back on a financial even keel has begun with Ricardo Teixeira, the notorious former head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), threatening to sue for damages in a counter action.
Teixeira, who FIFA say should pay back at least $3,514,025 as compensation for misappropriating funds, has not yet been extradited or charged despite being one of those named in the US indictment list for alleged bribery and corruption.
He says FIFA had no right to defame his name.
“I am going to sue them for moral damages in Zurich,” Teixeira told Globoesporte.com.br one of Brazil’s biggest sports web sites. “They throw this thing in the air. I don’t know anything about this suit against me, this unreasonable request.”
Teixeira was cited in the FIFA submission to the US authorities along with his two successors at the CBF and a raft of others who FIFA claim illegally pocketed more than $28 million since 2004.
Once one of the most powerful individuals in world football who was head of the Brazil 2014 World Cup organising committee, Teixeira famously resigned from all his footballing roles in March 2012, citing ill-health. But long before that he was being investigated for various alleged crimes, including tax evasion and money laundering, and fled to Miami when the Brazilian authorities stepped up their probe.
He was also heavily implicated in the infamous ISL scandal with the Swiss prosecutor’s report revealing that, during his tenure on FIFA’s exco, he and his one-time father-in-law, ex-FIFA President Joao Havelange, took more than $41 million in bribes in connection with the award of World Cup marketing rights.
Yet despite all this, he has now threatened to sue FIFA for reputational damage while at the same time questioning why Michel Platini, currently banned for six years for ethics violations, has not also been asked to pay back funds.
“I want to see if FIFA is fair, if they are going to ask the same of Platini,” Teixeira said. “The only case that I know of where FIFA money was proven to have been misdirected was Platini. I imagine that they are now going to go after him.”
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