CONMEBOL chief faces ethics complaint over recovered FIFA funds

Alejandro Domínguez, the president of CONMEBOL and a FIFA vice president, is facing an ethics complaint alleging he received millions of dollars from money recovered after the 2015 corruption scandal, according to the New York Times.The complaint was filed by a whistleblower who claims direct knowledge of the payments, with three people described as having direct knowledge saying senior FIFA officials have been aware of it for more than a year.The complaint alleges Domínguez and another senior CONMEBOL official received more than US$5m from funds CONMEBOL recovered after securing the return of money lost to corruption schemes linked to the 2015 investigation.CONMEBOL declined to comment, saying it was unaware of an ethics complaint, while FIFA did not respond to requests for comment and Domínguez did not reply to a request for comment.The timing is sensitive commercially and politically, with the FIFA World Cup set to begin next month across Mexico, Canada and the United States and with FIFA’s leadership already facing scrutiny over the transparency of its ethics processes.Miguel Maduro, FIFA’s first head of governance appointed by Gianni Infantino, said: “There’s no transparency whatsoever in how the ethics committee handles complaints, and often no final resolution.”The New York Times reported that the recovered money relates to funds retrieved from bank accounts once controlled by CONMEBOL officials implicated in the 2015 case, and that the complaint alleges some of the money was kept by Domínguez as a secret bonus or commission.Documents reviewed by the New York Times are described as showing agreements between CONMEBOL and the family of former president Nicolás Leoz, with a settlement that resulted in the return of more than US$50m from accounts in Paraguay and Switzerland.CONMEBOL confirmed in 2020 that it had secured the money, and Domínguez publicly positioned the recovery as part of a wider institutional reset after taking office in 2016.Domínguez said in 2020: “I made a promise to do justice beyond the judicial sphere, to renew the institution, to generate value beyond what was previously known and to reinvest that value, to give back to football what belongs to football.”The case also intersects with FIFA’s compensation architecture created after the scandal, including the World Football Remission Fund established with the US Department of Justice, through which CONMEBOL was identified as one party that could access compensation.Infantino said when the fund was announced: “I am delighted to see that money, which was illegally siphoned out of football, is now coming back to be used for its proper purposes, as it should have been in the first place.”Domínguez remains one of football’s most influential power brokers, with the New York Times noting his roles in FIFA’s financial oversight structures and his place in CONMEBOL’s recent early endorsement of Infantino ahead of FIFA elections next year.The reputational risk lies in the contrast between public messaging about reform and any perception that recovered funds were not fully reinvested into the game, an issue that can quickly spill into sponsor confidence, stakeholder trust and political scrutiny during a World Cup cycle.