NEW YORK, USA (Reuters) – CONCACAF, the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has settled a lawsuit against a U.S. travel company it accused of overcharging for services as part of a kickback scheme, the organisation said yesterday.The CONCACAF lawsuit, filed last December against California-based Cartan Tours Inc. in federal court in Los Angeles, was dismissed on Monday, according to the court docket.
The suit alleged Cartan secretly paid off CONCACAF’s former president Jeffrey Webb, who pleaded guilty last year in a U.S. indictment of corruption in football, and Enrique Sanz, who served as CONCACAF’s secretary general. In return, according the lawsuit’s claims, Cartan secured a lucrative deal to provide travel and event-planning services.
Cartan had denied the allegations and brought a counter claim against CONCACAF for breach of contract, according to Howard Steinberg of the Greenberg Traurig law firm, who defended the company and other defendants named in the case.
“The settlement resulted in a mutual dismissal of claims with neither side paying the other side any money,” Steinberg said.
CONCACAF is trying to clean up its organisation after several of its officials were swept up in a wide-reaching U.S. probe into bribery and kick-back-related offences that has rocked the sport’s world governing body FIFA.
In total, 41 individuals and entities have been charged in the United States in connection with the corruption investigation.
An attorney for CONCACAF, Samir Gandhi, said the organisation had been overpaying for travel services and was now free of the contract with Cartan.
“The settlement will save CONCACAF millions of dollars and allow the Confederation to continue to move forward from the misconduct of past management to focus on football and governance reforms,” CONCACAF said in a statement.
Lawyers for Webb and Sanz declined to comment.