Switzerland’s justice ministry says it has agreed to an extradition request by the United States for Venezuelan football official Rafael Esquivel, who hgas bveen implicated in a Fifa bribery investigation.
Esquivel is “accused of receiving bribes worth millions of dollars in connection with the sale of marketing rights to the Copa America tournaments in 2007, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2023.”
Esquivel can appeal the decision within 30 days at Switzerland’s federal criminal court.
The former Venezuela football federation president was among seven men arrested May 27 in early-morning hotel raids in Zurich, two days before the FIFA presidential election.
He is the third person whose extradition to the United States has been approved. In July Cayman Islands official Jeffrey Webb did not contest his extradition, while last week, a request for Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo to be extradited was agreed.
