LAUSANNE: Manuel Burga, the former president of the Peruvian football federation who had already been acquitted of criminal conspiracy charges in the United States, has had his FIFA life ban lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A CAS statement said its panel of judges partially upheld Burga’s appeal against FIFA “on the grounds of a violation of due process rights.”

Burga’s suspension from football in 2019 was annulled “and the case has been referred back to the Investigative Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, which will have to resume the procedure,” the court said.

Burga was the president of the Peruvian federation when he was implicated in accepting bribes within “FIFAGate” — the vast investigation released in 2015 by federal authorities in the United States.

He was tried along with two other South American soccer leaders, the only one of them being acquitted in December 2017. Leaving the court, he said: “My history in soccer is over.”

Two years later, FIFA investigators argued there was “overwhelming evidence” that Burga received or was promised $6.6 million in bribes linked to marketing deals for tournaments such as the Copa America and Copa Libertadores.

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