Skip to main content
Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

This story is free to read.

US, Swiss timed FIFA raids for maximum effect

A police vehicle is parked outside of the five-star hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday morning, May 27, 2015. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said six soccer officials have been arrested and detained pending extradition at the request of U.S. authorities ahead of the FIFA congress in Zurich. In a statement Wednesday the FOJ said U.S. authorities suspect the officials of having received paid bribes totaling millions of dollars. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)
A police vehicle is parked outside of the five-star hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday morning, May 27, 2015. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said six soccer officials have been arrested and detained pending extradition at the request of U.S. authorities ahead of the FIFA congress in Zurich. In a statement Wednesday the FOJ said U.S. authorities suspect the officials of having received paid bribes totaling millions of dollars. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP) A police vehicle is parked outside of the five-star hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich, Switzerland, Wednesday morning, May 27, 2015. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said six soccer officials have been arrested and detained pending extradition at the request of U.S. authorities ahead of the FIFA congress in Zurich. In a statement Wednesday the FOJ said U.S. authorities suspect the officials of having received paid bribes totaling millions of dollars. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone via AP)

By Associated Press 4 min read

BERN, Switzerland (AP) – For months, American and Swiss investigators worked in secret to prepare for the raids that would shake the soccer world.

They knew that the moment to strike would come when FIFA, the sport’s governing body, held its annual congress in Zurich, gathering all of its top officials – including the main suspects in a far-reaching U.S. corruption probe.

Any leak could have given the game away, allowing international soccer officials to scramble out of Switzerland or time to destroy important evidence before authorities could seize it.

“It was a months-long planning. It was quite intense to try to find out what is the best moment,” Andre Marty, spokesman for the Swiss attorney general’s office, told The Associated Press. “It was exactly today that most of the people of interest to the U.S. investigation and to the Swiss investigation are still in Switzerland.”

The dual investigations have shaken FIFA, which has been dogged by corruption claims. FIFA president Sepp Blatter has sought to manage the allegations, going so far as to file a criminal complaint against “unknown persons” last November. That move followed then-FIFA ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia’s protest at how FIFA handled his investigation into wrongdoing during the votes to host of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup – which went to Russia and Qatar.