Former CONMEBOL president Napout to be released from US jail - lawyer

ASUNCION : Former South American soccer boss Juan Angel Napout, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2018 for his role in the FIFA corruption scandal, could be released next week, one of his lawyers said on Thursday.

Napout, the former head of South American soccer's governing body CONMEBOL, was found guilty by a jury in the U.S. of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy, crimes stemming from the corruption scandal that engulfed global soccer body FIFA in 2015.

Napout's lawyer Juan Ignacio Gonzalez Macchi told a radio station in Paraguay that Judge Pamela Chen had reduced Napout's sentence and he would be released on compassionate grounds on July 5.

Napout suffers from cataracts in both eyes and his family alleges that he has not received adequate medical attention from prison authorities in Miami.

"He is released but there is some paperwork for him to be able to take a flight and return to Paraguay," said Gonzalez.

Napout served as the head of the national soccer federation in his native Paraguay from 2007 to 2014 and then of South American soccer’s governing body CONMEBOL for one year until he was arrested in Zurich in December 2015 and extradited.

He was banned from soccer for life by FIFA in 2019.

(Report by Daniela Desantis. Written by Janina Nuno Rios; Editing by Toby Davis)