Joao Havelange (L) and Ricardo Teixeira GENEVA — Former FIFA president Joao Havelange and one-time Brazilian football leader Ricardo Teixeira received millions of dollars in a World Cup kickbacks scandal, football's world governing body confirmed Wednesday. FIFA finally published a Swiss court dossier which detailed that Teixeira received at least 12.74 million Swiss francs (now $13 million) from 1992-97 in payments from World Cup marketing partner ISL. The Swiss-based agency's collapse into bankruptcy in 2001 sparked a criminal probe and exposed the routine practice of buying influence from top sports officials. The 41-page document showed Havelange received a payment of 1.5 million Swiss francs (then about $1 million) in 1997, one year before he was succeeded as FIFA president by Sepp Blatter. Payments “attributed" to accounts connected to the two Brazilians totaled almost 22 million Swiss francs from 1992-2000. The scale of kickbacks tied to World Cup broadcasting and marketing deals was revealed in a report by a prosecutor in the Swiss canton (state) of Zug who investigated Havelange and Teixeira for “embezzlement, or alternatively disloyal management." The document had been blocked from publication since June 2010, soon after prosecutors, FIFA and two of the most powerful men in world football reached a settlement deal to close the criminal investigation. FIFA, Havelange and Teixeira repaid 5.5 million Swiss francs (then $6.1 million) to end prosecutor Thomas Hildbrand's probe on condition that their identities remain secret. Teixeira, who repaid 2.5 million Swiss francs, denied criminal conduct. Havelange, who paid 500,000 Swiss francs, “did not comment on the accusation of criminal conduct," the report said. Before agreeing to repay 2.5 million Swiss francs, FIFA made its “consent conditional" upon dropping proceedings against its former president and then-serving member of its executive committee, the report showed. FIFA released the document hours after Switzerland's Supreme Court threw out an appeal by Havelange and Teixeira to suppress the dossier, and announced its ruling that media organizations should receive details of the ISL case. “FIFA is pleased that the ISL non-prosecution order can now be made public," football's world governing body said in a statement. Havelange and his former son-in-law Teixeira “unlawfully used assets entrusted to (them) for (their) own enrichment several times. FIFA suffered an equivalent loss." — AP
