New FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, has been dragged into a bribery scandal after his signature was found on leaked TV rights documents he signed in 2006 as a UEFA director.
Infantino, who was recently elected as the head of world’s football governing body for the next three years, signed documents with two businessmen in 2006 for TV rights to UEFA Champions League matches.
Hugo and Mariano Jinkis bought those rights and sold them for almost three times the price, and have now been accused of bribery.
UEFA claim the TV rights were sold to the highest bidder in an open and competitive tender process.
The Swiss administrator released the following statement on the matter:
“I am dismayed and will not accept that my integrity is being doubted by certain areas of the media, especially given that UEFA has already disclosed in detail all facts regarding these contracts,” Infantino said on Tuesday.
“From the moment I was made aware of the latest media enquiries on the matter, I immediately contacted UEFA to seek clarity. I did this because I am no longer with UEFA, and it is they who exclusively possess all contractual information relating to this query.
“In the meantime, UEFA has announced that it has been conducting a review of its numerous commercial contracts and has answered extensively all media questions related to these specific contracts.
“As I previously stated, I never personally dealt with Cross Trading nor their owners as the tender process was conducted by Team Marketing on behalf of UEFA.
“I would like to state for the record that neither UEFA nor I have ever been contacted by any authorities in relation to these particular contracts.
“Moreover, as media themselves report, there is no indication whatsoever for any wrongdoings from neither UEFA nor myself in this matter.”
This is the first scandal under the new FIFA boss after his predecessor was forced out of office in similar circumstance.
An unprecedented leak of about 11.5 million documents from secretive Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has recently exposed how some of the world’s rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.
