ASUNCION, Paraguay — The power that Nicolas Leoz had as the long-time leader of South American football is captured by a plaque in front of the headquarters of his previously impenetrable soccer kingdom.

Inscribed in four sentences is the local law that gives legal immunity — similar to that of an embassy — to the confederation headquarters that sits on a 100-acre complex on the outskirts of Asuncion, and includes a five-star luxury hotel, large convention center and heliport.

Leoz, former president of CONMEBOL, lobbied Paraguay’s legislators in 1997 for the law making the headquarters exempt from legal intervention. The immunity includes protection from the kinds of raids that happened last week at the FIFA and CONCACAF headquarters in Switzerland and Miami, in the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the world’s most popular sport.

Leoz, for decades essentially untouchable despite corruption allegations and now under house arrest, once bragged that only the Vatican enjoyed the same kind of “immunity and total privileges.”

“The police can’t come in, nor can an investigating judge, nobody as long as this law is in force,” Leoz told Argentine sports daily Ole in 2012.

But the era of grand privileges and immunity for the confederation appears to be coming to an end in this poor, landlocked nation of 6.8 million, where smuggling, corruption and tax evasion are endemic. Leoz, now 86, was one of 14 people indicted by the U.S. Justice Department last week on charges of bribery, racketeering and money-laundering.

 

Eugenio Figueredo, who succeeded Leoz as CONMEBOL chief before becoming a FIFA vice president in 2014, was among the seven FIFA officials arrested last week in Zurich, along with vice president Rafael Esquivel of Venezuela. Leoz and Esquivel are fighting extradition to the U.S.

According to the U.S. indictment, Leoz, Figueredo and other CONMEBOL officials accepted $110 million in bribes from a marketing company in exchange for the rights to four editions of Copa America, the South America national team tournament, which starts Thursday in Chile.

Interpol has added Leoz to its most wanted list as the U.S. seeks to extradite him. On Wednesday, the lower house of Paraguay’s Congress voted to overturn the immunity law, a stunning development considering the close ties that Leoz has traditionally kept with lawmakers. The bill, which President Horacio Cartes says he supports, now goes to the Senate.

Hugo Rubin, a lower house member who submitted the bill, said Paraguayans were proud of having the CONMEBOL headquarters, and lawmakers at the time, less than a decade after the end of a dictatorship, believed the immunity law would provide extra protection.

“Today we realize that was a mistake that might have helped orchestrate many (financial) irregularities, which I imagine could be uncovered when the immunity law is lifted,” Rubin told The Associated Press, also expressing concern that Paraguay could lose the headquarters.

Leoz, who has had four heart bypass surgeries, was released earlier this week from a private hospital that he owns. He was being treated for high blood pressure. Police cars stand guard outside his home in a wealthy neighborhood of Asuncion.