ZURICH: World football governing body FIFA’s independent ethics committee on Monday imposed life-long bans on two former Honduran officials for involvement in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme to which both have pled guilty.

Rafael Callejas, former president of the Honduran Football Association (FENAFUTH) and a former member of the FIFA Marketing and TV Committee, and Alfredo Hawit Banegas, former acting president of CONCACAF — the confederation that runs football in North and Central America, as well as the Caribbean — were banned from all national and international soccer-related activity, the ethics committee said.

The judging chamber said Hawit and Callejas previously made guilty pleas to racketeering and wire-fraud conspiracy charges in the US Department of Justice’s investigation of corruption in international football Hawit also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The ethics committee said both men took bribes from marketing companies linked to awarding commercial rights to World Cup qualifying matches.

Hawit and Callejas were among 16 people charged last December with bribery schemes for marketing and broadcast rights in a dismantling of a Latin American football network by US prosecutors.

Published in Dawn December 20th, 2016