Former soccer federation president for El Salvador, Reynaldo Vasquez, has been extradited to New York to face United States corruption charges in the FIFA bribery scandal.
Vasquez, Salvador’s FESFUT football federation between June 2009 and July 2010, is charged in an ongoing investigation alleging dozens of key global soccer figures in what United States prosecutors said were schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. The former president has been accused of pocketing over $150 million over a decade full of bribes and kickbacks.
Over 40 additional defendants have been extradited to the United States in recent years and ended up pleading guilty to avoid jail time. Former head of the Paraguayan federation, Juan Angel Napout, received the harshest sentence- a nine year jail term.
FIFA banned Vasquez from all soccer-related activities for life and fined him $522,000 USD in October 2019 for corrupt activities involving revenues from friendly matches between 2009-2015. In his home country of El Salvador, Vasquez was sentenced to eight years in jail on charges of embezzlement by a Salvadoran court in March 2017.
The 65-year-old Vasquez could make a remote court appearance in New York as early as Friday afternoon. His attorney has yet to release a comment or statement in the matter.