The glitzy lives of South American federation bosses
Sao Paulo - When Brazilian Football Confederation president Marco Polo Del Nero was pictured aboard his yacht being kissed by a young model, he could never have imagined the photo would become part of a corruption investigation into South American football.
A year later, that kiss has vanished from the Instagram page of Katherine Fontenele, the 24-year-old model whose nude photo had recently graced the cover of Brazilian men's magazine Sexy.
But the Internet never forgets, and the snapshot has come back to haunt the 74-year-old football honcho, who was one of 16 people indicted by US authorities this month in the spiralling corruption scandal shaking FIFA.
That love birds' outing on his 16-meter (52-foot) yacht returned from the past when a Brazilian Senate commission carrying out its own investigation into dirty dealings in the national sport announced it was requesting access to the bank and telephone records of Del Nero's ex-girlfriends.
Lawmakers suspect the yacht, My Way -- which Del Nero was fond of using for champagne-soaked outings with girlfriends a third of his age -- was purchased with bribes from sports marketing company Klefer, which is now in the cross-hairs of both the US and Brazilian investigations.
"Everybody saw the luxurious lives they lived," Brazilian sports journalist Juca Kfouri said of the men who run the so-called "beautiful game" here.
"They flew around in private planes, jets, helicopters. They had mansions in the best neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro... Nobody ever doubted where that money was coming from."
