NEW YORK/ASUNCION: Juan Ángel Napout, disgraced former president of South American confederation CONMEBOL is to be released from a Florida prison and deported after serving just over half of his nine-year sentence.

Napout was convicted on December 22, 2017, of one count of racketeering conspiracy and two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, and was jailed for nine years which he has been serving in a low-security federal prison in Miami.

His conviction was upheld in 2020 by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and he had been scheduled for release on August 9, 2025.

However Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote on Thursday to U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen that the 65-year-old is eligible for release to a residential reentry centre on July 6.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “expect to take custody of Mr Napout upon his release … for the purpose of removing him from the country.”

Peace added: “ICE has indicated it may also facilitate immediate self-removal, which would entail working with Mr. Napout and his counsel to secure a flight out of the country and working with the Paraguayan consulate to prepare an emergency passport.”

Napout’s lawyers have complained that he has not received adequate treatment for health issues and was in urgent need of cataract surgery.

Napout was banned for life by FIFA in 2019. He was president of CONMEBOL from August 2014 until December 2015, president of the Paraguayan Football Association from 2007-14 and a member of FIFA’s executive committee.

He was detained in Zurich while attending FIFA meetings in December 2015, seven months after the initial detention of seven other world football bosses in the FIFAGate investigation.

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