FBI investigation into corruption leads to dawn raids in Zurich, while Swiss authorities look into bids for 2018 and 2022 World Cups

Fifa has been plunged into an unprecedented crisis by the arrest of senior officials in dawn raids in Zurich following a long-running FBI investigation, while Swiss authorities simultaneously launched an inquiry into bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

A dramatic day for football’s world governing body began with 12 plainclothes policemen raiding the five-star Bauer au Lac hotel in Zurich and concluded with a damning press conference in Brooklyn at which the director of the FBI and the US attorney general accused senior Fifa executives of presiding over a “World Cup of fraud”.

Uefa, the European governing body, which has been backing Sepp Blatter’s rival for the Fifa presidency, Prince Ali Bin al-Hussain of Jordan, called for Friday’s presidential election to be postponed and said it might boycott Fifa’s congress. Until Wednesday’s events, ­Blatter was widely expected to be returned for a fifth term.

Swiss police arrested seven of the 14 officials charged by the US Department of Justice, nine of whom are current or former Fifa executives. All could face up to 20 years in prison. Shortly after, the Swiss federal prosecutor swooped on Fifa’s HQ in a parallel investigation into the controversial bidding race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively in December 2010.

Those charged include former senior Fifa executives entwined with decades of controversy under Blatter, including Jack Warner from Trinidad and Tobago, the former president of Concacaf, Fifa’s North American regional body, and the Paraguayan Nicolás Leoz, and those who claimed to be part of a new wave of reformers, including Warner’s replacement, Jeffrey Webb. Blatter had anointed Webb, a Fifa vice-president and head of its anti-racism taskforce, as his potential successor.



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Later on Wednesday, Warner turned himself in to authorities in Trinidad where bail was set at $2.5m (£1.6m).

Blatter, 79, was expected to win a fifth term despite a string of scandals during his 17-year tenure but now looks less secure than at any other time during that reign. In a desperate rearguard action, his spokesman tried to argue that the dramatic events were good for Fifa and attempted to align them with a discredited reform programme promised in the wake of a swirl of allegations four years ago.

Fifa announced it had provisionally banned 11 of the charged individuals from football including Webb, Eduardo Li, Eugenio Figueredo and José Maria Marin. It also banned some no longer involved in football including Warner and Chuck Blazer, the former general secretary of Conacaf, who became a whistleblower and is now seriously ill in New York.

Blatter described the day’s events as “unfortunate” but insisted Fifa welcomed both investigations, saying Fifa believed it would “help to reinforce measures that Fifa has already taken to root out any wrongdoing in football”.



In a searing indictment of Fifa’s culture of kickbacks and patronage “over two generations”, the US Department of Justice charged the 14 with 47 counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering conspiracies. Four more pleaded guilty, including Blazer and Warner’s two sons, Daryan and Daryll.

Seven of those charged, including Fifa vice-presidents Webb and Figueredo, were arrested in Zurich. The Swiss Department of Justice said all seven were being held in Zurich and six were resisting extradition to the US.

Uefa’s executives, gathering in Warsaw for the Europa League final, said the events of Wednesday were “a disaster for Fifa and tarnish the image of football as a whole”. Warning that Friday’s congress risked turning into a “farce”, Uefa called for it and the presidential vote to be postponed. “These events show, once again, that corruption is deeply rooted in Fifa culture,” it said.

The US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, said the bribes and kickbacks centred on sports marketing deals worth more than $150m but that they were not the only offences committed by executives entrusted with growing the game.



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“They were expected to uphold the rules that keep soccer honest,” she said. “Instead they corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and enrich themselves.”

US law enforcement agents uncovered evidence of bribery and corruption in the bidding process for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the 2011 Fifa presidential election and a sponsorship agreement between the Brazilian football team and a “major US sportswear company”.

Indictments unsealed on Wednesday against those charged went further still, detailing in hundreds of pages how Fifa’s culture of corruption and patronage had infected football confederations in North, Central and South America while executives hugely enriched themselves.

Among an avalanche of new claims was one that South Africa paid $10m in bribes to secure the 2010 World Cup – and that the cash was transferred via a Fifa account. The money was paid to former Fifa members Warner and Blazer. The ­latter became an FBI informer after he was threatened over millions in unpaid tax.

A separate cash payment in $10,000 stacks was collected from a hotel room in Paris from a high-ranking South African bid committee official. Richard Weber, chief of the IRS ­criminal investigation, told the press conference in New York: “This really is the World Cup of fraud and today we are issuing Fifa a red card.”



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The Swiss authorities seized “electronic data and documents” in a raid on Fifa headquarters that was coordinated with the Bauer au Lac arrests. Bank documents had earlier been collected from various Swiss financial institutions.



Police will question 10 members of the Fifa executive committee who took part in the World Cup votes in 2010 and are expected to speak to Blatter and the Uefa president, Michel Platini, both Swiss residents.

The two raids were coordinated to ensure that all those to be arrested or questioned were present in Zurich before the congress on Friday and to avoid collusion between suspects.



Webb, of the Cayman Islands, is the head of Concacaf, which reported itself to US tax authorities in 2012. The organisation had not paid taxes for years when Warner was president and Blazer was secretary general. Blazer had been cooperating for years with the FBI investigation, providing information on Concacaf’s activities over the period and wearing a wire at the London 2012 Olympics when meeting Fifa colleagues.

The mounting sense of crisis in Zurich has echoes of four years ago when Blatter was re-elected unopposed following the withdrawal of his Qatari rival, Hammam, amid bribery claims that again centred on Concacaf members. Then he sailed on, asking: “Crisis? What is a crisis?” The difference this time is that Swiss prosecutors have cooperated with US law enforcement to attempt to extradite Fifa officials gathered for the most high-profile meeting in its calendar.

Zurich cantonal police arrived at the Baur au Lac hotel, where senior Fifa executives habitually gather on their trips to Zurich for committee meetings, shortly before 6am. They stopped at reception to get the room numbers for the officials they intended to arrest. The men were not handcuffed as they were led away from the hotel covered in sheets.



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Last November, Fifa’s ethics ­committee closed its investigation into the bidding process that resulted in Qatar being named as host of the 2022 World Cup, ruling that any breaches of the rules were only of “very limited scope”.

The decision to award Qatar the tournament prompted allegations about the way it won the bid and concerns about the heat in which matches would be held and the treatment of migrant workers building the infrastructure underpinning it. But Fifa said an investigation did not find any direct link between the World Cup bid and illicit payments made by Hammam, who was banned for life for paying bribes during the campaign to unseat Blatter.

Fifa insisted its congress and the presidential election would go ahead as planned and the revelations were a positive development, even as a string of ­critics including Transparency International called on Blatter to stand down and postpone Friday’s vote. He will try to brazen out the latest crisis, focusing on the votes he needs from the 209 countries attending.

As delegates continued to fly in to Zurich, Greg Dyke, chairman of English football body the FA, said: “Blatter has put out a statement saying now is the time to start rebuilding the trust in Fifa. There is no way of rebuilding trust in Fifa while Sepp Blatter is still there. Sepp Blatter has to go. He either has to go through a resignation, or he has to be out-voted or we have to find a third way.”



