'WORLD CUP OF FRAUD'

ZURICH - The U.S. government launched an attack on what it called deep-seated and brazen corruption in soccer's global governing body Wednesday, pulling FIFA executives out of a luxury Swiss hotel to face racketeering charges and raiding regional offices in Miami.

Swiss officials also invaded FIFA headquarters, seizing records and computers to investigate whether the decisions to award World Cups to Russia and Qatar were rigged.

American prosecutors said they will seek forfeiture of more than $151 million the government alleges was illegally obtained.

Richard Weber, head of the IRS Criminal Division, called the developments "the World Cup of fraud."

In announcing the racketeering conspiracy and other charges against 14 defendants - nine current and former FIFA officials, four sports marketing executives, and an accused intermediary - prosecutors also revealed that four others had pleaded guilty in secret proceedings dating to July 2013. It's believed some or all are cooperating in the investigation.

Scandals and rumors of deeper corruption have dogged FIFA throughout the 17-year reign of its president, Sepp Blatter, but he was not named in either investigation. He is scheduled to stand for reelection to a fifth term, and the organization said the vote would go ahead Friday as planned, despite the latest turmoil.

FIFA also ruled out a revote of the World Cup bids won by Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. Philadelphia was one of 18 finalist cities in the U.S. bid to host those World Cup tournaments.

"We welcome the actions and the investigations by the U.S. and Swiss authorities and believe that it will help to reinforce measures that FIFA has already taken to root out any wrongdoing in football," Blatter said in a statement.

The organization said it was cooperating fully with the investigation.

Some of the biggest names in soccer said they had complained for years about corruption in FIFA, which oversees the world's most popular sport and generates billions in revenue each year.

"I was treated like a crazy person," former soccer great Diego Maradona told radio station Radio La Red in Buenos Aires. "Now the FBI has told the truth."

Former Brazilian star Romario, an outspoken FIFA critic, said "someone had to eventually arrest them one day."

Authorities conducted raids in Zurich at FIFA headquarters and the five-star Baur au Lac Hotel. In Miami, evidence was seized at the headquarters of CONCACAF, the governing body of North and Central America and the Caribbean, whose past and current presidents were among those charged with corruption.

Swiss police arrested seven soccer officials at the request of American prosecutors and threatened them with extradition to the United States. Four other soccer and marketing officials agreed to plead guilty.

"Beginning in 1991, two generations of soccer officials . . . used their positions of trust within their respective organizations to solicit bribes from sports marketers in exchange for the commercial rights to their soccer tournaments," U.S. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said at a news conference in New York. "They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament."

Two FIFA vice presidents were among those arrested and indicted, Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands and Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay, the Justice Department said. The others are Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, Julio Rocha of Nicaragua, Costas Takkas of Britain, Rafael Esquivel of Venezuela, and Jose Maria Marin of Brazil.

All seven are connected with CONCACAF or CONMEBOL, South America's governing body, and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

FIFA suspended 11 people, including Webb and Figueredo, from all soccer-related activities following the U.S. announcement.

Webb called himself a reformer when he was elected as CONCACAF president in 2012 to replace Jack Warner, a former FIFA vice president from Trinidad and Tobago, who also was named in the indictment.

The Swiss justice ministry said six of the seven officials opposed extradition to the United States, adding that U.S. authorities have 40 days to submit the formal extradition request.

The case involves bribes totaling more than $100 million linked to commercial deals dating to the 1990s for soccer tournaments in the United States and Latin America, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said. The Justice Department cited bribes and kickbacks involving media-rights deals involving World Cup qualifying matches in the Caribbean and Central America, the Copa America - South America's continental championship - plus the CONCACAF Gold Cup and Champions League.

"They were expected to uphold the rules that keep soccer honest and to protect the integrity of the game," Lynch said. "Instead, they corrupted the business of worldwide soccer to serve their interests and to enrich themselves."

U.S. prosecutors said they had uncovered a dozen schemes, including $10 million in payments from a FIFA account in Switzerland to an account in New York for credit to an account controlled by Warner. South Africa, with the backing of Nelson Mandela, beat rival bids from Morocco and Egypt to host the tournament in 2010, four years after narrowly losing out to Germany for the previous tournament.

The votes to award the World Cups to Russia and Qatar have been surrounded in controversy and accusations of corruption.

Qatar, a tiny gulf nation with little soccer tradition, was criticized from the start for its extreme summer heat. FIFA has since been forced to move the tournament to November-December instead of the usual June-July time slot.

Qatari soccer officials declined to comment.

The U.S. Soccer Federation said in a statement that "there is no higher priority, and nothing more important, than protecting the integrity of our game. We are committed to the highest ethical standards and business practices, and we will continue to encourage CONCACAF and FIFA to promote the same values."

Nike, which is not an official sponsor but pays to have the Brazilian and other countries' national teams wear its gear, said it was cooperating with the U.S. investigation.

Hundreds of soccer officials are in Switzerland for the FIFA congress, where Blatter is widely expected to win reelection.

But European football's governing body, known as UEFA, said that the election should be postponed and that it would consider boycotting the congress following the arrests.

UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said the corruption investigations into FIFA "tarnish the image of football as a whole."