FBI unearths '24-year scheme to corrupt soccer'

FBI agents carry boxes from the headquarters of CONCACAF after it was raided in Miami Beach, Florida. Photo: Getty Images

Edward Malnick in Zurich
© Telegraph Media Group Limited

It was, as one former FA official put it, an "amazing" turn of events that "the scene of the crime" in the run-up to the votes on the 2018 and 2022 world cups should have been the location of the first in a series of arrests of FIFA officials almost five years later.

At 6am yesterday morning, the five-star hotel on the shores of Lake Zurich, the site of intense lobbying for votes in December 2010, was visited by Swiss police acting on behalf of the US authorities.