Peru agrees to extradite former soccer federation head to U.S.

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru agreed to extradite the former head of the country’s soccer federation to the United States to face criminal conspiracy charges in a far-reaching inquiry into corruption at the heart of the sport’s governing body FIFA.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski approved Manuel Burga’s extradition in a resolution published on Thursday in the official gazette, El Peruano, five months after a Peruvian court found that the request from a New York court was substantiated.

Burga is one of more than a dozen current and former Latin American soccer chiefs whom U.S. prosecutors have accused of being part of multimillion-dollar bribery schemes for marketing and broadcast rights.

Burga’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Burga denied wrongdoing when he was arrested outside his home in Lima in December under an international warrant.

Burga headed the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) for a dozen years through 2014, when the federation blocked him from running for a fourth term as criticism grew over his management.

The U.S. Embassy in Lima did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a holiday.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Mitra Taj; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)