FIFA Bans Guatemala’s Ex-Chief For Life

FIFA on Monday banned Guatemala’s former football chief Brayan Jimenez for life over corruption, bribery and other offences, making him the latest former executive thrown out of the sport in disgrace.

Jimenez last year pleaded guilty to racketeering and wire fraud conspiracies in a US court after accepting bribes worth several hundred thousand dollars in exchange for media and marketing rights for key matches.

He was arrested while drunk in a posh Guatemala City suburb in January of last year and extradited to the United States.

A statement from the judicial arm of FIFA’s ethics committee said Jimenez was “banned for life from all football-related activities (administrative, sports or any other) at national and international level.”

The committee opened its probe against Jimenez in December 2015, a day after the US justice department declared him a wanted man.

Over the last two years, US prosecutors in New York have indicted 40 football and sports marketing executives over allegedly receiving tens of millions of bribes and kickbacks in the largest corruption scandal in the history of football.

A trial is scheduled to begin November 6 for five defendants currently in the United States who have pleaded not guilty.

AFP