ASUNCION: Paraguayan federation president Juan Angel Napout is new head of the South American football confederation after a shuffling of roles following the recent death of Argentina’s Julio Grondona writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Napout succeeds Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo who took over the CONMEBOL leadership after the returement in April last year of long-serving, scandal-assailed Paraguayan Nicolas Leoz.

Figueredo has stepped up to take over the South American vice-presidency of the world federation which had been held by Grondona.

CONMEBOL has three delegates to the FIFA executive committee. Figueredo and Brazil’s Marco Polo Del Nero will be joined by Luis Bedoya of Cplombia.

This means that the president of the South American confederation will no longer sit on the world governing body.

Napout, a 56-year-old businessman who speaks English, French and Portuguese, is a former president of top club Cerro Porteno and has taken lead roles within Paraguayan football ever since his mid-20s.

In 1998 he led Paraguay’s delegation at the 1998 World Cup finals in France. Napout was elected a vice-president of the federation in 2003 and president in 2007.

Venezuela’s Rafael Esquivel is the new vice-president of CONMEBOL alongside Bedoya and Chile’s Serguio Jadue.

Bedoya has been president of the Colombian federation since 2006 and became a CONMEBOL vice-president last august.

He is the third Colombian to sit on the FIFA exco after Alfonso Senior (1970-86) and Leon Londono Tamayo (1986-94).

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