Andre Penner/Associated Press
Nicolás Leoz, the most powerful man in South American soccer for more than two decades, who had spent recent years under house arrest in Paraguay fighting extradition to the United States on corruption charges, died on Wednesday. He was 90.
The cause was cardiac arrest, his lawyer, Ricardo Preda, said.
Mr. Leoz was the president of Conmebol, South America’s soccer confederation, from 1986 to 2013. He was also a longtime top executive of FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, which saw its leadership upended by a sweeping criminal case announced by the United States Justice Department in 2015.