Swiss prosecutors have closed a criminal case involving FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, where he had been accused of ”incitement to abuse of authority, violation of official secrecy and obstruction of criminal action,” it was announced yesterday.
The investigation had been launched in July 2020 where prosecutors were investigating three alleged secret meetings that took place in 2016 and 2017, between Infantino and the former Swiss Attorney General, Michael Lauber, who was in charge of investigations in connection with FIFA between 2015 and 2019, and who resigned in 2020 after he was implicated in the scandal.
Lauber had been in charge of investigations in connection with FIFA between 2015 and 2019, who resigned in 2020 after he was implicated in the scandal.
Swiss Extraordinary Federal Prosecutors, Hans Maurer and Ulrich Weder, have now decided to dismiss the proceedings against Infantino.
Maurer and Weder had taken over the case in May 2021 after the previous Prosecutor, Stefan Keller, has been removed from his position after a court ruled he could not “guarantee a fair process.”
That followed a successful complaint from FIFA over four press releases issued from his office which world football’s governing body said it demonstrated “extreme bias”.
FIFA claimed in a statement, “The outcome of this investigation is obviously entirely unsurprising.
“The only surprising element is only the long time taken to reach such an obvious conclusion.”
Infantino, also a member of the International Olympic Committee, was in buoyant mood following the announcement.
This is the second case this year that Swiss prosecutors have dropped against Infantino, elected FIFA President to replace Sepp Blatter in February 2016.
In March, Swiss prosecutors cleared him of any wrongdoing over his use of a private jet in 2017.
He chartered a flight from Suriname to Switzerland, and Keller had called for a criminal investigation which was later dropped.
“Now it is official: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has always acted absolutely correctly and lawfully in his relations with the Swiss public prosecutors who were investigating the ‘old FIFA’,” the International Federation said.
“The new FIFA today is clean, well run and robust organisation which operates in accordance with the highest ethical and governance standards.”-insidethegames.biz
