FIFA: Sepp Blatter calls for Infantino to be investigated over meetings
Former FIFA president Joseph Blatter has claimed that his successor Gianni Infantino offered favours to a senior Swiss prosecutor.
Disgraced former FIFA president Joseph Blatter has called for an investigation into his successor Gianni Infantino, after Switzerland’s attorney general admitted meeting with the current boss of world’s football governing body, news agency AFP revealed on Wednesday.
The Football Leaks website alleges that Infantino offered favours to a senior Swiss prosecutor, Rinaldo Arnold, in a bid to foster a relationship with attorney general Michael Lauber, possibly to obtain privileged information about a FIFA probe. Speaking to journalists earlier this week, Lauber dismissed the accusations, arguing that his meetings with Infantino were “normal and regular, especially in complex cases”.
Informal meeting
According to Football Leaks, the informal meetings occurred in the spring of 2016, a few months after Infantino took charge of FIFA.
The body that oversees Lauber’s office, known as AS-MPC, told AFP that while Lauber was not under investigation, it was examining the property of the meetings between the prosecutor and the FIFA boss. Blatter reacted saying: “The FIFA Ethics Committee must do something, an open investigation into Mr. Infantino. Where is the transparency preached by Mr Infantino during his election? He should report himself to the Ethics Committee to show that he is transparent. Infantino met Mr Lauber several times, whereas I have been questioned by him just once since a procedure against me was opened in September 2015".
Blatter, who headed FIFA for 17 years, was banned from football in 2015 at the height of a massive corruption scandal.