The 72-year-old, a former member of CONMEBOL and the executive committee, had been under investigation for a number of years
Former Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) president Ricardo Teixeira has been banned from football for life and fined one million Swiss francs (£770k/$1m) by FIFA.
Teixeira, a former FIFA executive committee member and once the son-in-law of ex-president Joao Havelange, was found guilty of bribery by world football’s governing body.
FIFA’s ethics committee had been investigating the 72-year-old Teixeira over allegations he was involved in “bribery schemes, conducted during the 2006-2012 period, in relation to his role in awarding contracts to companies for the media and marketing rights to CBF, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF competitions”.
In a statement released on Friday, FIFA said: “In its decision, the adjudicatory chamber found that Mr Teixeira had breached art. 27 (bribery) of the FIFA code of ethics (2018 edition) and, as a result, sanctioned him with a ban for life on taking part in any football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level.
“Additionally, a fine in the amount of 1m CHF has been imposed on Mr Teixeira.”
The ban came into force immediately, with details of the decision made available to the public on FIFA’s website.
Teixeira, who denies wrongdoing, was elected CBF president in 1989 and remained in office until 2012. Brazil twice won the World Cup during that time, in 1994 and 2002.
He was also a member of the CONMEBOL executive committee.
He cited health reasons when he stepped down from office as CBF president seven years ago, where he also stepped down from organising the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
In 2015, his name was mentioned in an indictment from the US Department of Justice on racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges, though he was never successfully extradited to the US.
Three years previously, allegations had been confirmed that he and Havelange had accepted even-figure sums from the ISL agency which marketed World Cup broadcasting contracts.
Teixeira’s defence lawyers had sought to claim that the charges brought against him were unfounded assumptions made by US attorneys, who they claimed didn’t have any evidence to support indictment.
However, the defence was dismissed as FIFA pointed to bribe payments and promised bribe payments of seven-figure sums, noting that the money should have been used to further the development of South American football.
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