Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced today the application by the United States of extraterritorial laws in the case of the arrest of FIFA officials accused of corruption, embezzlement and money laundering.

Regarding the arrests, the case appears, at least, very strange, since the arrests were made at the request of the US to accuse international officials of corruption, said Putin.

One can assume that some of them violated something, I do not know, but we know for certain that the United States has no jurisdiction in that case, said the president.

Local media warned yesterday about possible maneuvers of Washington to put in doubt the choice of Russia to host the football 2018 World Cup.

This constitutes a new attempt by the White House to extend its jurisdiction to other nations, he denounced.

The seven officials, mainly from Latin America, were arrested yesterday on charges of corruption, embezzlement, money laundering and other crimes in more than two decades of work.

The FIFA case might be another example of how the United States uses illegal methods to achieve its objectives, as it did with the former employee of the National Security Agency Edward Snowden and the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, he said.

Unfortunately, our American partners employ illegal means to achieve their goals, including the persecution of people, Putin stressed, as quoted by Interfax.

I don't exclude at all that in the case of the FIFA officials the same methodology repeats itself, although I do not know how the process will end, said Putin, who in a recent poll by the firm Levada accumulated an 86 percent of popularity among Russians.

The Head of State recalled that this situation takes place in the eve of the election of the new chairman of the governing body of football. This leads us to think about the aforementioned aspects, he emphasized.