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Mass arrests in FIFA corruption probe


Fifa spokesman Walter De Gregoria says president Sepp Blatter and its general secretary Jerome Valcke are not implicated in a corruption probe underway into the vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

He also said the Fifa Congress to vote for who would be its president for the next four years would go ahead as planned in Zurich on Friday.

The announcements followed the dawn arrests of several top football officials in a Zurich hotel and a Swiss police raid on Fifa headquarters as part of a probe into the votes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup which went respectively to Russia and Qatar.

The US Justice Department, meanwhile, unsealed an indictment against nine Fifa officials and five executives, charging them with conspiracy and corruption over a 24-year span.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the 47-count indictment spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks. This includes the selection of South Africa as the host country for the 2010 World Cup and the 2011 FIFA presidential election.