ALFRED HAWIT: EX FIFA VICE PRESIDENT EXTRADITED TO THE USA TO FACE CORRUPTION CHARGES

MR. ALFREDO HAWIT

The FIFA whirlwind is consuming more people every day, this time it’s the former vice president of the association Alfredo Hawit, 64, who got his face stamped. He has been extradited from Switzerland to the United States and was to appear in court today.

He is the fifth FIFA official extradited by Switzerland to the United States in connection with the several financial controversies in the football body administration being investigated and he is alleged to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars as bribe when he was the General Secretary of the Honduran football federation.

Mr. Hawit was the General Secretary of the Honduran F.A. between 2008 and 2014, he was apprehended in Zurick on December 3 and on January 6, it is stated that he had agreed to be tried in the U.S. He was also the President of the confederation of North, Central America and Carribean Association Football (CONCACAF).

Prosecutors in New York seek his trial for accepting millions of dollars in bribe in connection with the selling of marketing rights to the various sports marketing firms and of marketing rights to football tournaments in Latin America, the US Justice Department has so far brought charged 39 individuals and two companies over graft within world football going back decades, in a sweeping prosecution that has sparked an unprecedented crisis at FIFA.

This raging scandal has led to the downfall of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his close ally Michel Platini, with Platini now suspended and out of the race for the presidency of FIFA. It is also reported that 9 other FIFA officials were arrested in the course of two raids at a five-star hotel in Zurich, on May 27 and December 3, by Swiss police who were acting on a US warrant

.

Reports have it that four others have already been extradited in connection with the matter and flown to the US while 3 others, Julio Rocha of Nicaragua, British-born Costas Takkas and Venezuela's Rafael Esquivel are said to be against the journey and fighting against extradition.