FIFA president Gianni Infantino has criminal investigation into his use of a private jet DROPPED
EXCLUSIVE: FIFA President Gianni Infantino Has Criminal Investigation Into His Use Of Private Jet Between Suriname And Geneva In 2017 ABANDONED By Swiss Prosecutors
- A criminal investigation against FIFA president Gianni Infantino is shelved
- The use of a private jet from Suriname to Geneva in 2017 was being scrutinized
- Infantino has waived his right to compensation after seeing the case abandoned
FIFA president Gianni Infantino was cleared by Swiss prosecutors of any wrongdoing for the use of a private plane in 2017.
Infantino chartered a flight from Suriname to Switzerland, and as a result, prosecutor Stefan Keller called for a criminal investigation, which has now been dropped.
FIFA’s ethics committee dropped its own investigation into the use of the plane in August 2020 due to ‘the apparent lack of a prima facie case regarding any alleged violation of FIFA’s code of ethics’, and now a criminal case has also been dropped in Switzerland.
“FIFA welcomes the decision of the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG), which has closed the investigation against FIFA President Gianni Infantino in connection with a private plane chartered to fly from Suriname to Switzerland in 2017. “, read a FIFA statement. .
“It has been confirmed that the travel arrangements, made by the Office of the President and FIFA’s travel department, were fully in line with FIFA’s compliance rules and regulations, a decision that is in line with the decision of the FIFA Ethics Committee in August 2020 on this case.. Furthermore, the Attorney General’s Office has acknowledged that the manner of communication in relation to these travel arrangements at that time was entirely justified.’
Swiss prosecutors have dropped a criminal investigation into FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s use of a private plane in 2017 to fly between Suriname and Switzerland.
Despite being eligible for considerable compensation, Infantino has waived his rights to receive damages and simply leaves all legal costs of the case to the Swiss state.
The statement concludes: “Since the start of the proceedings, the FIFA President has been fully available to the Swiss authorities and hopes that the judicial system will continue to recognize that the current FIFA administration has turned the page and now it’s established.” as a credible and respected organization.’
A case against the FIFA president originally arose when prosecutors examined Infantino’s meetings with former Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber.
Both men strongly denied any wrongdoing in those meetings and Infantino would later explain that he routinely met with prosecutors from around the world to discuss any ongoing criminal cases in which FIFA was assigned victim status regarding alleged activities. corrupt before his presidential election in 2016.
Infantino, who replaced Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016, later saw a 2017 flight from Suriname to Geneva scrutinized by Keller, angering Infantino and the governing body.
Addressing the use of the private plane, FIFA said in a blunt rebuttal in 2020: “Now, many months after its investigation and having established precisely nothing problematic about these meetings with the former federal attorney general, as FIFA always predicted would be the case, and without even asking to hear from the FIFA president since his investigation was announced last July, the ‘special prosecutor’ has today issued an official ‘press release’ saying that the FIFA president must now be investigated for another thing.
His rebuttal added: “Neither FIFA nor its president have ever been informed of these new spurious allegations and are therefore unable to comment on them, which is likely the intention of the ‘special prosecutor’.”
Infantino continually denied wrongdoing and was cleared by FIFA’s ethics committee in 2020
‘Special prosecutor’ Stefan Keller’s method of accusing and smearing by issuing press releases without justification borders on defamation and is rejected in the strongest possible terms by FIFA and its President. Obviously, FIFA and its president will take all necessary legal measures and resources to put an end to these ill-intentioned and baseless accusations.”
In March 2021, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court sided with FIFA following a complaint against Keller, accusing him of going beyond his original mandate to investigate the meetings with Lauber.
Two months later that year, Keller was removed from his position as extraordinary federal prosecutor in the Infantino investigation after a court ruled that he could not “guarantee a fair trial.”
The Swiss Federal Court stated that “by attempting to investigate matters that had nothing to do with his mandate and then publicly raising his own personal suspicions about them without any objective justification, Mr. Keller had clearly violated the presumption of innocence and damaged the position of the FIFA president.
The criminal investigation is over.