Football united behind Infantino, says leading FIFA official

BERN: FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the subject of criminal proceedings in Switzerland, enjoys the unconditional support of football associations around the world, the global soccer body’s general secretary Fatma Samoura said on Friday.

Swissauthoritiessaidlastmonththatproceedings had been launched against the current FIFA boss by a special prosecutor looking into meetings he had with Swiss Atorney General Michael Lauber.

Lauber and Infantino have denied wrongdoing. “The world football is strongly united behind the FIFA President,” said Samoura in a statement, adding that in the last few days she had atended 25 virtual meetings during which Infantino spoke to the presidents of 180 national associations.

“To hear all of them expressing total and unconditional support to the FIFA President is certainly heart-warming,” she said.

“There is clearly a strong feeling among FIFA member associations that under President Infantino, FIFA is by far a more transparent, accountable and especially beter governed institution.”

She added that the Swiss case was not considered a big issue among the national associations.

“The general opinion was that President Infantino will come out stronger from this difficult moment. Almost no question was asked about the investigation,” she said.

Two days back, former FIFA chief Sepp Blater blasted Infantino, says “he thinks he is untouchable”.

Mr Infantino is in a situation where he thinks he is untouchable,” said Blater.

Blater was banned for eight years, later reduced to six, for an illicit payment of two million Swiss francs ($2.2 million) made to former UEFA president Michel Platini. The payment was made in 2011, when Blater was seeking re-election as president, but was related to work carried out by Platini between 1999 and 2002.

Blater insisted FIFA’S Ethics Commission “should immediately open an investigation and disclose it as they did against me”.

However, he then added that the commission “is not independent” because “Infantino has locked the control bodies and this is very worrying”.