The files, seen by the Guardian, show that Infantino – formerly director of legal services at Uefa – co-signed a television rights contract in 2006 with two businessmen who have since been caught up in football’s corruption scandal. Uefa said it is cooperating fully with the Swiss police.
The office of the attorney general of Switzerland (OAG) said the search was “motivated by the suspicion of criminal mismanagement” relating to the sale of TV rights but that “no specific individual is being targeted by these proceedings”.
The statement read: “The suspicion is based on the result of findings that have emerged from other proceedings, as well as the corresponding financial analyses carried out by the OAG. Current publications in the media subsequently revealed still other elements that made it possible to complement the existing findings in a decisive manner.”
Uefa said on Tuesday night that Infantino, elected Fifa president in February, was “dismayed that his integrity was being doubted” in media coverage of the case.
The Mossack Fonseca documents detailed a 2006 contract to sell the rights to the Champions League, the Uefa Cup and the Super Cup for Ecuador. The deal was with two figures who have since been accused of bribery as part of the US investigation into corruption at Fifa. Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis, his son, are currently under house arrest in Argentina.
Cross Trading, the Jinkis’s Argentinian company, which was registered in the South Pacific tax haven of Niue, bought the rights for 111,000 US dollars, then immediately sold them to the Ecuadorian broadcaster Teleamazonas for $311,170.
Uefa had initially denied doing business with any of the 14 individuals indicted by the FBI, but admits now its response was incomplete. After a full review of thousands of commercial contracts, it accepts the deal was done as part of an “open tender” – a process conducted by Team Marketing on behalf of Uefa – and the rights were sold to the highest bidder.
Uefa said: “Neither Team nor Uefa had any reason to believe that there was anything suspicious or untoward about an agency relationship between Cross Trading and Teleamazonas.”
It said any bilateral deals between Teleamazonas and Cross Trading were “their business, not ours”. “We do know that [it was the] best offer for these FTA [free-to-air] rights in Ecuador. And that’s why we took it.”
Following the raid on Wednesday, Uefa released a statement saying: “Uefa can confirm that today we received a visit from the office of the Swiss federal police acting under a warrant and requesting sight of the contracts between Uefa and Cross Trading / Teleamazonas. Naturally, Uefa is providing the federal police with all relevant documents in our possession and will cooperate fully.”
Original Article
Source: theguardian.com/
Author: James Riach
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