Conmebol president and Fifa vice president Alejandro Domínguez is accused of trying to extort a businessman for 1.6 million dollars – leaving 300 workers jobless – and making death threats against a security worker.

By Håvard Melnæs and Philippe Auclair
In collaboration with Sin Falta

Outside his home country, Alejandro Domínguez seldom, if ever, steals the headlines. At Fifa’s congresses he keeps a low profile, careful not to step out of the shadows of showrunner Gianni Infantino. In Paraguay, it’s a whole other story. 

Here, Domínguez is considered to have almost absolute power and seems to act without impunity. He is a close friend – and business partner – of president Santiago Peña. Basilio “Bachi” Núñez, president of the Senate in Asuncion, is another confidant. The Domínguez family has a long history of having an intimate and secretive family and business relationship with the political elite in Paraguay, going back to the dark times of Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship which started in 1954 and lasted all the way to 1989.

In a Senate session in the beginning of April, senator Celeste Amarilla pulled no punches when describing the most powerful football politician on the American continent:

“I wonder how much power Alejandro Domínguez has? He is worse than Lalo. Threats to judges, bought judges, recused judges and disqualified judges”, she said from the Senate floor.