A former president of the Salvadoran Football Federation (FESFUT) was extradited to the United States on Friday, where he faces corruption charges in the FIFA bribery scandal.
Authorities in El Salvador arrested Reynaldo Vásquez in 2016 as part of an international operation against the leaders of the world’s governing body. El Salvador rejected the accusations when he tried unsuccessfully to avoid extradition to his country.
Vasquez, 65, appeared at a remote hearing in New York on Friday, where he pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges. He was ordered to be detained without bail.
Vásquez’s defense attorney declined to comment Friday.
Vasquez is being indicted as part of an extensive investigation into dozens of key football figures in what US prosecutors consider to be illicit associations involving bribes of hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of the accused have been extradited to the United States in recent years and have come to plead guilty.
A 2015 indictment accused Vásquez of electronic fraud and money laundering that sentenced him to a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors claim that the former FESFUT chief accepted money in exchange for granting coverage and marketing rights for the matches of the Salvadoran national team.
Vásquez is due to appear in court again on April 7.
Although Vásquez’s extradition was approved by the Supreme Court in August 2017, it was not carried out given that the former FESFUT president was serving an eight-year prison sentence in his country for improperly taxing 204 employees. his family business.
After being reduced, the sentence is already executed, which opened the door to extradition.