The president of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol), Alejandro Domínguez, is at the center of an ethics complaint alleging that he received millions of dollars from funds recovered from the corruption scandal that rocked world football in 2015. The information was revealed this Sunday by The New York Times, in a report by journalist Tariq Panja.
The complaint, filed by a whistleblower who claims to have direct knowledge of the payments, accuses Domínguez and another senior Conmebol official of receiving more than US$5 million from money returned to the organization after the recovery of sums diverted in corruption schemes. Conmebol stated it was unaware of the complaint, while FIFA did not respond to requests for comment. Domínguez also did not comment.
The case takes on delicate contours on the eve of the 2026 World Cup, which begins next month in Mexico, Canada and the United States. Domínguez, who took over Conmebol in 2016 after the arrest of his predecessor as part of the U.S. Department of Justice investigation, is also one of FIFA's eight vice-presidents.
According to the report, senior FIFA officials have known about the complaint for more than a year, but the status of the investigation remains uncertain. The organization's ethics committee, which previously confirmed details of high-profile cases, now operates under greater secrecy. María Claudia Rojas, head of the committee's adjudicatory chamber, said last year that cases can take years to conclude.
Miguel Maduro, the first chairman of the governance committee appointed by Gianni Infantino, criticized the lack of transparency. "There is no transparency whatsoever in how the ethics committee handles complaints, and often there is no final resolution," Maduro said. "Instead of dismissing the complaint or acting, they often just keep it there and nobody knows what they will do."
The complaint is based on documents showing agreements between Conmebol and the family of Nicolás Leoz, the organization's former president who died in 2019, which resulted in the return of more than US$50 million from accounts in Paraguay and Switzerland. In 2020, when announcing the recovery of the funds, Domínguez stated: "I made a promise to do justice beyond the judicial, to renew the institution, to generate value beyond what was known and to reinvest that value, to return to football what belongs to football."
The New York Times report has not been independently verified, and the allegations remain unconfirmed.