Romario gathers Congress support for probe into Brazilian football federation
Brazilian lawmaker and former striker of Brazil’s national football team, Romario da Souza Faria, has gathered the required support from congress to open a parliamentary inquiry into the country’s football federation (CBF).
Romario requested for a special congressional committee to investigate the CBF's current and former leadership after the federation’s vice president, Marco Polo del Nero, was taken in for police questioning last month as a part of a probe into alleged financial crimes and extortion.
In March this year, Romario praised the resignation by the head of the CBF, Ricardo Teixeira, who stepped down amid accusations of having received bribes from FIFA’s former marketing partner ISL.
Congress support of the probe into the CBF comes no more than 18 months before the country will play host to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and it will pose a great challenge to football's world governing body FIFA, writes journalist Chistopher Gaffney in his blog Hunting White Elephants.
"The rot runs deep at the CBF and opening the black box as the World Cup starts coming into view is going to challenge FIFA`s newly re-proclaimed dedication to transparency" writes Gaffney.
Source: Bloomberg, Hunting White Elephants