Former CONMEBOL vice-president Eugenio Figueredo latest official to receive life-ban from football, announces FIFA

Lausanne: The former president of the Uruguayan Football Federation, Eugenio Figueredo, arrested in Zurich in 2015, was suspended from football for life, FIFA announced on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_4435431” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The 87-year-old was a former vice-president of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) and served on several FIFA committees. The proceedings, the governing body of world football said in a statement, “referred to a bribery scheme during the period from 2004 to 2015 in relation to his role in awarding contracts to companies for the media and marketing rights to CONMEBOL competitions.” FIFA’s Ethics Commission also fined Figueredo 1 million Swiss francs (913,000 euros). Figueredo was arrested in May 2015 in Zurich with a dozen officials as part of the ‘Fifagate’ investigation. He was extradited by Uruguay where he struck a deal with the courts to provide information on frauds, in particular at FIFA and CONMEBOL. The Uruguayan is the latest South American former FIFA official to be banned for life. He follows Juan Angel Napout, former president of the Paraguayan Football Federation and of CONMEBOL, on 12 September and Colombian Enrique Sanz, former Secretary-General of the Football Confederation of North, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), on Monday. Napout was sentenced to nine years in prison by a US court for corruption.