The long-running FIFA corruption scandal resulted in the jail sentence for the former president of El Salvador’s soccer federation.
The former president of the Federacion Salvadorena de Futbol (FESFUT), often known as the Salvadoran Football Federation, Reynaldo Vasquez, 66, was given a 16-month prison term on Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn. Vasquez, who was detained and charged in November 2015 before being extradited from El Salvador to the US in 2021, admitted guilt to a racketeering conspiracy in August of that same year.
Vasquez acknowledged taking a $350,000 bribe from Miami-based Media World in 2012 in exchange for the FIFA official giving El Salvador’s qualifying matches for the 2018 World Cup media and marketing rights.
“The defendant and his co-conspirators, motivated by greed, disgraced themselves by lining their pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, at the expense of a beautiful sport, El Salvador’s soccer federation, and the community it served,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “Vasquez has now been held to account, like the many other corrupt soccer officials who have been exposed by the government’s investigation.”
Vasquez, who served as head of the Federación Salvadoreña de Fútbol from 2009 to 2011, entered into a plea deal in which he promised to turn over $360,000 as well as other bank accounts to the government.