March 23 – And then there was one. Costas Takkas, close associate of disgraced ex-CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he participated in bribery schemes under the widespread the-US led football corruption investigation.
Takkas, the last but one of the original Zurich Seven to be extradited from Switzerland, appeared in a federal court in Brooklyn to answer charges that included engaging in conspiracies to commit racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
He was reportedly released on a $1 million bail and will be held under house arrest in Miami.
Takkas, a British citizen, is among 42 individuals and entities charged as part of the US probe into more than $200 million in bribes and kickbacks sought by high-ranking football officials for marketing and broadcast rights. He is specifically accused of accepting millions of dollars in exchange for awarding marketing rights for 2018 and 2022 World Cup qualifiers.
Takkas was originally arrested in May last year in the downtown Zurich hotel swoop that marked start of the worst corruption case in FIFA history and plunged the world governing body into unprecedented crisis.
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) approved the extradition of the former general secretary of the Cayman Islands FA, led at the time by Webb, in October. The FOJ said in a statement that his appeal against extradition had been rejected and that two US police officers accompanied him on a flight to New York.
That leaves Julio Rocha, former president of the Nicaraguan Football Federation, as the last remaining FIFA official in Swiss custody. He, too, has had his extradition request rejected after Swiss justice authorities gave it precedence over extradition to his homeland. The FOJ added: “This decision is not yet legally binding as Rocha has 10 days in which to lodge an appeal with the Federal Supreme Court.”
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