LA PAZ: Carlos Chavez, treasurer of the South American Football Confederation CONMEBOL, has been dismissed from the presidency of the Bolivian football federation.
He has been held in detention on July 17 on corruption charges not linked directly to the FIFAgate scandal investigation but believed to have stemmed from information passed on by the United States authorities.
Walter Torrico, secretary-general of the FBF, said that the dismissal of Chavez had only been possible, under trhe body’s statutes, by the summoning of an extraordinary congress.
Chavez who is being held in the notorious Palmasola Prison in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, pending trial. He is one of five senior FBF officials currently under investigation for corruption.
He was arrested on charges arising out of allegations concerning the misappropriation of some of the $400,000 raised a 2013 friendly between Bolivia and Brazil. The game was staged to raise funds for the family of a fan, Kevin Beltran, who had been killed at an earlier game.
Beltran’s father, Limbert Beltran, has claimed that the family has yet to see its own due share of receipts from the game.
Chavez had been president of the FBF for nine years. He has been succeeded in the interim by league president Marco Ortega pending the election of a permanent replacement within the stipulated 30 days.
Last week state prosecutors raided the FBF’s headquarters and accused it of failing to cooperate with its investigation.
Alberto Lozada, executive secretary of the federation, is also being detained at the orders of the Special Force against Crime (FELCC) and also under investigation are the former league president Fernando Humérez, regional league boss Jorge Justiniano and the former federation general secretary Pedro Zambrano.
All have denied any wrongdoing.
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