Emilio Azcarraga, the executive chairman of Mexico’s telecommunications giant Grupo Televisa, resigned his role this week, the media company said.
Azcarraga’s resignation was announced in a filing made with Mexican financial regulators on Thursday, and comes amid a broader probe launched by federal law enforcement in the United States and Switzerland over the company’s business with international soccer body FIFA.
In a statement, Grupo Televisa characterized Azcarraga’s departure as a “leave of absence” that coincided with the U.S. Department of Justice’s probe into an alleged bribery scheme concerning distribution rights to FIFA’s quadrennial soccer tournament, the World Cup.
No one has been charged in connection with the alleged scheme, and the investigation is ongoing. In a regulatory filing earlier this summer, Grupo Televisa said the probe could have a material impact on its future financial results.
Grupo Televisa is the largest shareholder of Televisa-Univision, a media company that includes the Univision broadcast network and several local channels in the United States; Mexican TV networks Canal 5, Foro, Las Estrellas and Nueve (stylized as NU9VE); and the streaming video platform Vix. Grupo Televisa owns 45 percent of Televisa-Univision; the company has not been implicated in the matter involving FIFA.
