FIFA bans Brazilian football president for 90 days

Marco Polo Del Nero, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), is a step closer to facing trial.

On Friday, Polo Del Nero was provisionally banned from all football activities at both national and international levels by FIFA’s Ethics Committee. The duration of the ban may be extended by a period not exceeding 45 days.

Polo Del Nero was among 16 additional FIFA officials indicted for racketeering, conspiracy, and corruption by the United States Department of Justice in 2015. After resigning from the FIFA Executive Committee, he was charged one week later with racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies, among other offences, in connection with a scheme to make money by corrupting international football.

According to the Guardian, Polo Del Nero fled Switzerland in May 2015 when nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the beginning of the corruption scandal engulfing football’s governing body, and Jose Maria Marin, a former president of the CBF, was among the defendants.

Romario, a politician who was part of Brazil’s squad when the Selecao won the 1994 World Cup, wrote on Facebook: “My hope, like many Brazilians who love football, is to see him banished once and for all. Del Nero has already had his crimes unmasked with those of other corrupt ones like Jose Maria Marin, already imprisoned in the USA, and Ricardo Teixeira, still loose in Brazil. They used the CBF to illegally enrich.”

Antonio Carlos Nunes de Lima will be employed as the CFB’s president while Polo Del Nero serves his ban.