Soccer's
embattled world body FIFA has suspended Enrique Sanz, the general secretary of
the American football grouping CONCACAF. Sanz fits a description included in
last week's anti-corruption sweep by US authorities.
Deutsche Welle, 1 June 2015
FIFA's
ethnics committee said Monday Sanz was suspended provisionally on the basis of
its own investigations and the "latest facts" presented by
prosecutors in New York.
Sanz had
been banned "from carrying out any football-related activities at national
and international level" on the basis of investigations carried out by
FIFA's Ethics Committee and in the wake of corruption charges filed by US authorities, FIFA said.
And, in a
separate announcement, FIFA's ethics committee said Congolese federation
vice-president, Jean Guy Blaise Mayolas, and its general secretary, Badji Mombo
Wantete, had also been suspended pending further investigation.
Leave of
absence
CONCACAF,
the football confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean,
announced last Thursday that it had put Sanz on immediate leave of absence.
The
Colombian, who reportedly suffers from leukemia, became CONCACAF's general
secretary in July 2012 after working for 15 years as vice president of the
media rights and marketing firm Traffic USA.
Last
Thursday, Sanz's lawyer, Joseph DiMaria, told Reuters: "Mr. Sanz and his
family are focusing on his health issues at this time."
'Co-conspirator
#4'
In last
Wednesday's US indictment, federal prosecutors referred to an unnamed
"co-conspirator #4," who they said, had participated, on Traffic's
behalf, in acquiring rights for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to
qualifying matches leading up to the 2018 and 2012 World Cup, before joining
CONCACAF.
CONCACAF
last Wednesday dropped its president, Jeffrey Webb, who was among seven soccer
officials arrested while visiting Zurich ahead of a FIFA congress.
The seven
were detained pending extradition requests from the United States related to
corruption allegations.
FIFA's
annual Congress on Friday culminated in the controversial re-election of the world body's president Sepp Blatter.
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