FIFA: US Department of Justice indicts 9 FIFA officials and 5 corporate executives

"A 47-count indictment was unsealed early this morning in federal court in Brooklyn (New York, USA), charging 14 defendants with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offenses, in connection with the defendants’ participation in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer," stated the US Department of Justice on 27/05/2015.

The seven aforementioned FIFA officials were arrested in their hotel on the eve of the opening of the FIFA Congress (28 and 29/05/2015), in which the president of the international federation for the 2015-2019 period will be elected.

"The guilty pleas of four individual defendants and two corporate defendants were also unsealed today," added the US Department of Justice. Among the defendants who have already entered guilty pleas in this case are the American Charles "Chuck" Blazer, a member of the FIFA Executive Committee from 1996 to April 2013, and the general secretary of CONCACAF from 1990 to 2011, and the Brazilian Jose Hawilla, the owner and founder of the marketing and media rights…