Authorities in Congo-Brazzaville have applied to Interpol for an international arrest warrant against Jean-Guy Blaise Mayolas, the president of the country’s football federation, Fecofoot, after he was convicted of embezzling $1.1m in Fifa funds.
Mayolas is on the run with his wife and son after they were all sentenced to life imprisonment this month for embezzling funds provided by world football’s governing body as part of its Covid-19 relief plan in February 2021. As the Guardian revealed last year, that included almost $500,000 earmarked for the Congo women’s team.
Mayolas and his family were tried in absentia and are believed to have fled the country weeks before the hearing. Investigators suspect he may be hiding in Cameroon or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The authorities and partner police forces in the region have been alerted and officials are working with financial intelligence units, including Tracfin, the French financial intelligence unit, to freeze assets linked to the case.
Mayolas and his family members were convicted of money laundering, forgery, use of forged documents and embezzlement on 10 March by the court in Brazzaville, along with Fecofoot’s general secretary, Badji Mombo Wantete, and treasurer, Raoul Kanda. Wantete and Kanda were each sentenced to five years in prison.
Fifa opened disciplinary proceedings against Mayolas, Wantete and Kanda last week for alleged financial misconduct. The charges under consideration include conflict of interest, forgery and improper acceptance of gifts after Fifa’s ethics committee received information and documents during a review.
It has been alleged Mayolas, since being elected as president of Fecofoot in 2018, used a series of shell companies to embezzle funding from Fifa. According to a declaration signed by the presidents of every women’s club in the country’s top flight that was sent to the Congolese authorities in March, $20,000 of the $500,000 Fifa sent to Fecofoot in 2021 as part of its Covid-19 relief plan was paid out.
Mayolas denied all the allegations before his disappearance, describing them as a conspiracy. Wantete also rejected the accusations. In 2015, they received six-month bans from Fifa for ethics violations related to gifts and benefits.
Mayolas was suspended by the country’s sports ministry last year after being investigated for fraud. Fifa stepped in and banned Congo from international football for “third-party interference”, meaning that in March they had to forfeit World Cup qualifiers against Tanzania and Zambia, who were awarded 3-0 victories.
Congo were reinstated when Fecofoot was permitted to resume control of its headquarters in Brazzaville, although Mayolas and Wantete were prevented from travelling to Fifa’s congress in Paraguay and arrested a few days later.
