Two sports marketing companies which are embroiled in the Fifa bribery scandal can be linked to a letterbox company in the Netherlands, the AD reports on Monday.

The Dutch company Torneos & Traffic Sports Marketing BV is allied to two sports marketing companies in South America which are implicated in the scandal, the AD says. On paper, the company, which is worth millions of euros, has been headed by a 32-year-old amateur comedian named Maarten van Genuchten since October 2014.

According to the FBI, Fifa officials were bribed to award valuable contracts for television rights via these South American firms. Torneos & Traffic Sports Marketing has assets of €2m which were deposited in 2013. The company is owned by a holding company based in Cyprus

One of the 14 officials and sports marketeers who have been arrested is Alejandro Burzaco, who heads Argentine firm Torneos y Competencias and is currently under house arrest. He, together with the Brazilian firm Traffic Group owned by José Hawilla are said to have used bribes to win the rights to broadcast the Copa America and south American Champions League.

orneos & Traffic Sports Marketing  director Van Genuchten married an Argentine woman in 2014 and moved there, where he now describes himself as translator.

Silence

The AD got in touch with Van Genuchten by Skype who declined to answer questions about the sports marketing company until he had ‘discussed it with others’. Since then, he has gone quiet, the paper says.

The AD asks itself if some of the millions earned on the broadcast rights have been moved through the Netherlands and points to the existence of another affiliated company, the Traffic Sports Europe BV based in The Hague.

Both the American and Dutch public prosecutors have refused to comment on the paper’s findings, the AD said.