FIFA vice president Angel Maria Villar was warned and fined 25,000 Swiss francs ($25,000) for misconduct during the 2018-2022 World Cup bid investigation.
The light sanctions from the FIFA ethics committee end a case which last year had potential to bring a more severe verdict on Villar, who is the No. 2 elected UEFA official behind President Michel Platini.
The punishment was for an "indecent" remark during a one-hour interview with then-FIFA prosecutor Michael Garcia, the Spanish soccer federation said in a statement.
Villar, the longtime federation president, said something similar to "He's got a nerve" in his native language, according to the Spanish body.
"(Villar) regrets that oral expressions made by him have been perceived differently by some members of the FIFA ethics committee," the federation said, adding he believed that "at no time he behaved in an indecent manner or breached any other provision of the FIFA Code of Ethics."
Villar, a lawyer who chairs the FIFA legal committee, at first refused to cooperate with Garcia. He then tried within FIFA to have the former US Attorney thrown off a case which many saw as key to FIFA's credibility.
The Spanish football federation president "failed to behave in accordance with the general rules of conduct," during Garcia's investigation, the FIFA ethics panel said in a statement.
FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert imposed lighter sanction because Villar later "demonstrated a willingness to cooperate."
Merkel presses DFB
Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel is pressing the German federation to get to the bottom of allegations surrounding the 2006 World Cup.
Questions have swirled in recent weeks over a suspect payment to FIFA in connection with the World Cup. On Monday, federation president Wolfgang Niersbach resigned, saying he was taking "political responsibility" despite not having done anything wrong.
Merkel says "the memories are unchangeable and, I hope that the German Federation will transparently clear up everything that happened."