MIAMI: Ricardo Teixeira’s permanent departure from his self-imposed exile in the United States has been confirmed with the sale of the Miami Beach waterfront home by his wife.

Teixeira, former president of the Brazilian football confederation and past member of the FIFA executive committee, fled Brazil in the spring of 2012 to escape pressure over a number of football-linked financial scandals.

However he returned to Rio de Janeiro this summer after the FIFAGate corruption investigation exploded in the US. Teixeira was not named specificially in the US Department of Justice indictment issued against 14 other senior football offiicials but his former CBF No2 and successor, Jose Maria Marin, was among those detained in Zurich in May.

Recent reports in the Brazilian suggested that he has also sold a Rio property at below market value to help settle a claim from the tax department.

While Teixeira, as a Brazilian citizen, remains in Brazil he cannot be subject to extradition.

The Miami Beach mansion at 2345 Lake Avenue on Sunset Island III was once owned by tennis star Anna Kournikova. She sold it in 2012 for $7.425m to Ochab Properties, a company controlled by Teixeira’s wife, Ana Carolina Wigand Rodrigues.

MB Lake Avenue Property paid a reported $9m.

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