Juan Ángel Napout Barreto (born 13 May 1958) is a Paraguayan football executive and businessman. He was head of the

Paraguayan Football Association The Paraguayan Football Association ( ; APF) (Guarani language, Guarani: ''Paraguái Mangapy Atyguasu''), is the omnibus governing body of football (soccer), football in Paraguay. It organizes the Paraguayan football league system, Paraguayan fo ...

from 2007 to 2014. Napout served as President of

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

from August 2014 until his resignation on 11 December 2015 after his arrest in

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, Switzerland, in relation to the

2015 FIFA corruption case In 2015, United States federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach so ...

. In December 2015, he was banned by the

FIFA Ethics Committee The FIFA Ethics Committee is one of FIFA's three judicial bodies. It is organized in two chambers, the ''Investigatory Chamber'' and the ''Adjudicatory Chamber''. Its duties are regulated by several official documents, most importantly the ''FIFA ...

for 90 days.

Biography

Napout was born on 13 May 1958 in

Asunción Asunción (, ) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of Asunción in the north ...

, Paraguay. In June 1989, at the age of 32, Napout became the President of the Paraguayan football club

Cerro Porteño Club Cerro Porteño is a professional Paraguayan Association football, football club, based in the neighbourhood of Obrero (Asunción), Obrero in Asunción. Founded in 1912, Cerro has won 34 Paraguayan Primera División, Primera División titles ...

. From 2007 to 2014, Napout was President of the

. Napout succeeded Eugenio Figueredo as President of CONMEBOL in August 2014 on an interim basis. On 4 March 2015 he was re-elected for a full term as President of CONMEBOL and was also appointed Vice-President of

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

. Napout was arrested in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

on 3 December 2015 on charges of accepting bribes. On 11 December 2015 Napout resigned as President of CONMEBOL and was succeeded in interim capacity by

Wilmar Valdez Wilmar Valdez (born 10 July 1965) is a Uruguayan football executive who served as interim President of CONMEBOL between 11 December 2015 and 26 January 2016. He took up the position after the resignation of Juan Ángel Napout which was related t ...

. After his arrest Napout agreed to extradition and appeared before a federal judge in New York on 15 December 2015 and declared himself not guilty on the five charges brought against him. He was afterwards released on bail. His trial commenced in November 2017. He was accused by U.S. authorities of racketeering conspiracy as well as wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The U.S. assistant attorney stated he requested and accepted bribes. On 22 December 2017 Napout was found guilty on three counts of racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. On 29 August 2018, Napout was sentenced to nine years in prison. In November 2017, investigations of the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsche Z ...

revealed that, in 2010, Napout created a company in the Bahamas the day he started to receive bribes from the Datisa (the consortium handling football broadcasting rights in Paraguay). A proxy bank account based in Switzerland was also set under his wife's name (Ruth Forster) to wire the money from the Bahamas to a European account and reroute it back to Paraguay. In 2015, he allegedly received 1 million dollars in bribes on the Copa América 2015 deals. In September 2019, FIFA banned Napout for life.

In popular culture

Agustín Moya portrayed Napout in the 2020

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

original series '' El Presidente''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Napout, Juan Angel 1958 births Living people Paraguayan businesspeople People from Asunción Presidents of CONMEBOL Association football executives People convicted of mail and wire fraud People convicted of racketeering