Cape Town — Swiss police swooped on a leading Zurich hotel early on Wednesday morning and arrested top officials attending meetings of football's governing body, FIFA. Later in the morning, Swiss prosecutors announced they had raided FIFA's offices in a separate criminal investigation.
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said in a statement that six people had been detained pending extradition to the United States to stand trial on charges of receiving bribes totalling millions of U.S. dollars.
Later Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed details of an indictment charging 14 football officials and corporate executives with 47 counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud. Apart from one Briton, all those named were from the United States and Central and South America. No African football officials were named in either the American or the Swiss investigation.
Local Zurich police made Wednesday's arrests at the city's five-star Baur au Lac hotel. The Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) said the arrests were made at the request of U.S. authorities.
"The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York is investigating these individuals on suspicion of the acceptance of bribes and kick-backs between the early 1990s and the present day," the FOJ said.
"The bribery suspects – representatives of sports media and sports promotion firms – are alleged to have been involved in schemes to make payments to the soccer functionaries – delegates of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and other functionaries of FIFA sub-organizations – totalling more than USD 100 million.
"In return, it is believed that they received media, marketing, and sponsorship rights in connection with soccer tournaments in Latin America. According to the US request, these crimes were agreed and prepared in the US, and payments were carried out via US banks."
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European and American news organisations said plain clothes police arrived at the hotel early on Wednesday, requisitioned room keys from hotel reception and went upstairs to make the arrests.
The world's top football officials were in Zurich for meetings of FIFA's executive committee this week, leading up to its congress on Friday.
The New York Times reported an American law enforcement official as saying it seemed as if corruption was "institutionalized" at FIFA. "We're struck by just how long this went on for and how it touched nearly every part of what FIFA did," the official was reported as saying. "It just seemed to permeate every element of the federation and was just their way of doing business."
The FOJ said Zurich police will question the detainees today. If detainees agree to be extradited to the U.S., their extradition can be approved immediately. But if they oppose it, the Swiss will ask the U.S. government to submit a formal extradition request within 40 days.
In their statement, the Swiss attorney-general's office said electronic data and documents had been seized in the raid on FIFA's head office.
"it is suspected that irregularities occurred in the allocation of the FIFA World Cups of 2018 and 2022," the statement said. "The corresponding unjust enrichment is suspected to have taken place at least partly in Switzerland... There are also suspicions of money laundering through Swiss bank accounts."
This report has been updated with breaking news. It has also been corrected to reflect the Zurich arrests as having taken place during a week of executive meetings and FIFA's congress.
