The Swiss government announced on Thursday that it had extradited a FIFA official to the United States due to that country's corruption investigation into several high-ranking members of the international soccer governing body.

"The first of the seven FIFA officials being held in custody in Switzerland was extradited to the US on July 15," said the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, adding that "he was handed over to a three-man US police escort in Zurich who accompanied him on the flight to New York."

Though the justice office declined to name who had been sent to the US, a source told Reuters news agency last week that Jeffrey Webb, a former FIFA vice president and head of the CONCACAF soccer federation, had agreed to go to the US to face charges.

The other six officials facing extradition to the US are, like Webb, involved either in FIFA's North and Central American branch CONCACAF, or in its South American counterpart, CONMEBOL.

Webb was arrested at the end of May as part of a sweeping anti-graft probe in the US. Switzerland is running a separate, but related probe tied larged to the votes awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar, as well as money laundering and racketeering. Most, but not all, of the US investigations pre-date the 2010 successes for Russia and Qatar.

The scandal prompted FIFA's President Sepp Blatter, who has led the organization for 17 years, to announce his plans to resign at a special convention of the organization in 2016, just days after he was re-elected.

es/msh (AFP, Reuters)