A Croatian soccer official will be allowed to watch the team's World Cup semifinal match from a VIP section on Wednesday despite being convicted last month in a corruption case linked to the transfer of captain Luka Modric.
When Croatia beat Russia in the quarterfinals on Saturday, the director general of the country's soccer federation sat in the same row of seats as Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Damir Vrbanovic has stayed in office since being sentenced in June to a three-year jail term even though FIFA's disciplinary code bars officials "convicted of a criminal offense in the past five years."
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