(Reuters) -Former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner can be extradited from his homeland of Trinidad to the United States to face corruption charges, a London court said on Thursday.
Warner’s lawyers argued that his extradition was unlawful but London’s Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for many Commonwealth countries, unanimously dismissed his appeal.
Suspicion and rumours have surrounded the 2010 votes by FIFA’s executive to hand the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 edition to Qatar.
In 2020 a U.S. Department of Justice indictment said bribes were paid to soccer officials to secure their votes for hosting rights.
The DOJ alleged that then FIFA vice-president Warner was paid $5 million through various shell companies to vote for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.
His role as president of CONCACAF, which organises soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, gave him enormous influence as a powerbroker for former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter.
A former member of the FIFA Executive Committee and former CONCACAF president Warner was suspended by FIFA in 2011 and in 2015, charged with wire fraud, racketeering and money-laundering by the U.S.
FIFA banned him from all soccer-related activity for life in 2015. The 79-year-old has always denied any wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin in London and Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Chopra)
