El Salvador’s Supreme Court of Justice has ruled that former football federation chief Reynaldo Vasquez can be extradited to the United States to face charges in the FIFA corruption scandal, it said Thursday.
However, the courts will first have to sort through a series of local charges against the disgraced ex-president of the Salvadoran Football Federation, which only came to light at the last minute, it said.
“A resolution has been signed approving the extradition and a court has been designated to deal with the case,” acting chief justice Florentin Melendez told AFP.
But “we have to see what we decide in open court about this new information that the subject of the extradition request already has trials in progress before the Salvadoran courts. We only learned that after signing the resolution,” he added.
Vasquez is facing trial for allegedly pocketing payroll taxes that his furniture company was supposed to pay for its employees, a court press office said.
The president of the Salvadoran federation from 2009 to 2010, he was among the 16 people indicted last week in the latest twist in the corruption saga shaking world football’s governing body.
The scandal over allegations of multi-million dollar bribes for the awarding of tournament hosting rights and broadcast contracts has upended FIFA, leading to the suspension of long-time president Sepp Blatter and a string of other top officials.