Latin American soccer fans cheer FIFA corruption sweep

Yet while local fans were saddened not to see one of their own teams win last year's trophy in Brazil, they were heartily cheering the unprecedented arrests and probes announced on Wednesday.

"This should have happened long ago!" said Wilson Suares, 66, a newspaper seller, in Rio de Janeiro, the city that is for many the sport's spiritual 'home' and where the World Cup final was held - and won by Germany - in 2014.

"All those people are just there to steal," he said, in views echoed in streets and Tweets across the soccer-mad region.

Latin American fans have long booed officials assumed to be on the take, amid deep public disgust at graft in the game. Sentiment against world governing body FIFA was strong during big street protests before the Brazil World Cup.

Seven of the region's best-known football figures were detained in Switzerland on Wednesday to face possible extradition to the United States. U.S. officials said the investigation exposed complex money laundering schemes, millions of dollars in untaxed incomes and tens of millions in offshore accounts held by FIFA officials.

Those arrested are: Jeffrey Webb, vice-president of world body FIFA, president of North and Central American body CONCACAF and head of soccer in the Cayman Islands; Eduardo Li, who runs Costa Rica's soccer federation; Julio Rocha, who headed Nicaragua's federation; Eugenio Figueredo, another FIFA vice-president who used to run Uruguayan soccer; Rafael Esquivel who is the sport's boss in Venezuela; Jose Maria Marin, who used to be the head of Brazil's federation; and Costas Takkas, another CONCACAF official.

The seven were taken before dawn at a hotel in Switzerland - where suites cost up to $4,000 a night - before a FIFA congress where its president Sepp Blatter was seeking re-election.

"Unfortunately it wasn't our police who caught them, but somebody had to catch them. Thieves have to go to jail," said former Brazilian soccer great Romario, who was on the team that won the World Cup in 1994 and is now a senator.

"I hope this has positive effects and that these events allow us in South America and Brazil to definitively clean up our soccer," he added, praising Swiss and U.S. authorities.

COPA AMERICA AFFECTED?

Another two soccer officials - Nicolas Leoz, a Paraguayan who used to be head of South American soccer body CONMEBOL; and Jack Warner, a former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF head from Trinidad and Tobago - were also named in the U.S. indictment, together with four marketing executives.

The U.S. charges run from racketeering and bribery to wire fraud and money laundering.

Many fans and even players across Latin America and the Caribbean have for long believed that soccer's governors enrich themselves at the expense of grassroots development.

"We have a FIFA with millions of dollars and there are players in Uruguay, in Costa Rica, where I'm told they don't earn more than $150 (a month)," former Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona told local TV.

He said he was "enjoying" the spectacle of top soccer officials being arrested.

The news from Switzerland came at a bad time for Latin American football federations: their showpiece tournament, the Copa America, starts in Chile on June 11.

There was no suggestion the event would be cancelled, but embarrassed national federations were keeping rather quiet on Wednesday as they digested events.

Brazil's soccer body, the CBF, whose new headquarters was inaugurated last year bearing Marin's name, said, however, it would "completely support" any investigation.

"I don't think it will affect the development of the (Copa America) tournament, but it will cause noise off the pitch ... this is not a minor thing," Harold Mayne-Nicholls, ex-head of Chilean soccer and a Blatter critic, told local radio.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said investigations should help make local soccer more professional, and Costa Rica announced its own investigation.

Some fans called for action against Blatter.

"He has got to go, he needs a red card," said Juan Escobedo Martinez, 75, a Mexico City taco seller.

Most of those arrested or named on Wednesday are high-profile characters in their home countries.

Marin, remembered in Brazil for surreptitiously pocketing a winner's medal for teenagers who won the Sao Paulo Youth Cup in 2012, warned last year that Brazil's performance in the World Cup would take them either to "heaven or hell".

It turned out to be the latter after they were demolished 7-1 by Germany in the semi-final.

Costa Rica's Li, a businessman of Chinese origin, was seen as the architect of the national side's excellent World Cup run in Brazil and named 2014 person of the year by La Nacion newspaper.

Venezuela's Esquivel is nicknamed "Whisky-vel" by detractors who accuse him of preferring corruption and the high life to professionally running local soccer.

He has vehemently denied the accusations.

"I always wondered when this day would come," said Argentine lawyer Carlos Maslaton, 56. "It is surprising FIFA has remained largely immune from the rules that governments have imposed on their own citizens over the last 20 years. There will be a lot of worried people in Argentina today."