Lausanne
Gianni Infantino has insisted that he had “nothing to hide” in a letter to member federations of football’s global governing body FIFA despite Swiss prosecutors launching a criminal probe against him.
In the letter, sent on Thursday and seen by AFP, FIFA chief Infantino tells the body’s 211 members that there were no “factual grounds for the opening of a criminal investigation” which was announced last week.
The special prosecutor has been investigating suspected collusion between Infantino and Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber, who resigned last month over his handling of a corruption investigation targeting FIFA.
Infantino and Lauber are said to have held a series of secret meetings in 2016 and 2017, but the FIFA head said the meetings was about restoring “public trust in our institution” after a series of scandals.
He claims that those meetings “were in no way secret and most certainly not illegal”.
“I went to these meetings with the most senior law officer in the country in order to offer our full support and assistance in connection with the ongoing investigations, because FIFA has an interest and is a damaged party in these investigations,” Infantino wrote.—AP
