FIFA President Gianni Infantino was interviewed for a second time by Swiss authorities in a criminal case where he is accused of “incitement to abuse of authority, violation of official secrecy and obstruction of criminal action.”
The investigation had been launched in July 2020 and infantino had initially been quizzed last April by magistrates Ulrich Weder and Hans Maurer, who conducted the interview in Zurich, where football’s world governing body is based.
The prosecutors are 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.
It’s alleged that during the secret meetings, Infantino had been seeking information on investigations into FIFA and its former executives….Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, potentially with the intention to influence the course of those investigations.
Both Blatter and Platini were acquitted by the Swiss Federal Criminal court in July 2022 but another trial is due to take place as a result of the prosecution and FIFA appealing the acquittal.
Infantino, a member of the International Olympic Committee, will be hoping that the matter is cleared up before March, when he is due to stand unopposed for re-election as FIFA president at the organization’s congress in Rwanda’s capital Kigali.