Six FIFA officials have been arrested in Switzerland and will be detained pending extradition at the request of United States' authorities.

In a statement Wednesday, the FOJ says US authorities suspect the officials of having received of paid bribes totalling millions of dollars.

The charges include wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering, and officials said they targeted members of Fifa’s powerful executive committee, which wields enormous power and does its business largely in secret.

The arrests came at the five-star Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich ahead of FIFA's elections on Friday.

The Swiss authorities seized “electronic data and documents” in a raid on FIFA headquarters. Bank documents had earlier been collected from various Swiss financial institutions. Police will question 10 members of the Fifa executive committee who took part in the World Cup votes. The 10, all still current members of Fifa’s ExCo, include senior vice-president Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister who is head of the country’s 2018 World Cup organising committee. The others are Angel Maria Villar Llona (Spain), Michel D’Hooghe (Belgium), Senes Erzik (Turkey), Worawi Makudi (Thailand), Marios Lefkaritis (Cyprus), Jacques Anouma (Ivory Coast), Rafael Salguero(Guatemala) and Hany Abo Rida (Egypt).

"We welcome the actions and the investigations by the US and Swiss authorities," said Sepp Blatter in a statement.