Brazil chief Teixeira takes medical leave
Reuters - Friday 09 March 2012, 01:48
The president of
Brazil's football confederation (CBF) and head of the country's
2014 World Cup organising committee Ricardo Teixeira has taken a
medical leave of absence, Brazilian state football chiefs said on
Thursday.
Teixeira, who did not specify how long he would be absent,
has been head of the CBF for more than two decades but is the
subject of repeated corruption allegations.
He is reported to be suffering from diverticulitis, a
painful inflammation of the bowel lining.
"Ricardo sent a letter to the federation presidents
informing them of his leave for medical reasons, but he did not
say for how long," Delfim Peixoto, president of the football
federation in the southern state of Santa Catarina, told
Reuters.
Teixeira, 64, will temporarily be replaced by Jose Maria
Marin, according to the confederation's statutes.
Officials at the Rio de Janeiro-based confederation would
not confirm the news.
Teixeira has run the CBF since 1989 and turned it into a
highly profitable commercial enterprise. Brazil had not won the
World Cup for 19 years when he took over but they have lifted
two trophies in the years since.
However, he has faced repeated allegations of graft and
corruption.
In 2001, an investigation by Brazil's Congress accused him
of 13 crimes ranging from tax evasion to money laundering to
misleading lawmakers, although no charges were ever brought.
Last year, David Triesman, the former head of the English
Football Association, said Teixeira offered him money in
exchange for Brazil's backing of England to host the 2018 World
Cup, a tournament that was eventually awarded to Russia.
In February, the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper said a company
linked to him overcharged the organisers of a November 2008
friendly match between Brazil and Portugal in the capital
Brasilia.
Teixeira had turned much of the organizing committee's
public work over to Ronaldo, the former Real Madrid, Inter Milan
and Barcelona striker whom he appointed to the 2014 World Cup
organizing committee's management board on December 1.
The move by Teixeira came on the same day Brazil's sports
minister attempted to defuse a simmering dispute between Brazil
and world football's governing body by accepting a FIFA apology
for criticism of preparations to host the 2014 World Cup finals.
Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo had declared he would no longer
work with FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke after he said
Brazilian organizers needed "a kick up the backside."
Valcke and FIFA President Sepp Blatter both apologised for
the spat and Rebelo sent letters to them accepting their
apologies.
Rebelo also agreed to Blatter's request for an emergency
meeting with President Dilma Rousseff to discuss World Cup
planning.