Current CONMEBOL president Juan Ángel Napout has not held forth on the unfolding scandal at his federation. A journalist with Paraguayan daily ABC Color told AS: "He wasn't even there at the opening game of the Copa América, South America's premier tournament."
Napout was in Zurich at the end of May, when the FBI and the Swiss police arrested eight Fifa executives at the Baur au Lac Hotel. After that Napout asked the 10 South American federations to vote en masse against Sepp Blatter and in favour of his challenger, Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan. Brazil and Ecuador, though, didn't carry out the request. "We said we were going to vote as a bloc, but some countries decided not to do it. I understand. These are exceptional circumstances," said Napout after Blatter's re-election.
After the arrests, the CONMEBOL chief launched a vigorous defence of Fifa: "Fifa cannot be corrupt. If there is corruption, it is on an individual level. It's not the institution, it's the men. The institution remains pure. Blatter has acted correctly." Since then, Napout has made no public declarations.
Napout, of Palestinian heritage, was elected as a Fifa vice president at the 65th congress in Zurich last month and he has been CONMEBOL president since 2014. His director general at the federation is Gorka Villar, the son of Spanish Football Federation chief Ángel María Villar.