Infantino interfered in changes to FIFA ethics code

Sports Des: FIFA chief Gianni Infantino broke the world soccer body's rules by interfering in the rewriting of its ethics code, German magazine Der Spiegel and European Investigative Collaborations, a network of international media, reported on Friday.

FIFA's Ethics Committee, which banned and suspended dozens of officials including former FIFA president Sepp Blatter following a 2015 corruption scandal, is supposed to operate independently from soccer's global governing body.

But Spiegel said leaked emails showed Swiss-Italian Infantino, who replaced Blatter, was behind changes to the ethics code which included a limitation period of 10 years on historical investigations into corruption and bribery.

A FIFA spokesperson on Friday said there was nothing untoward in Infantino's correspondence with the soccer body's chief ethics judge over the redrafting of the code.

The Spiegel report cites a December 2017 email to Infantino from Vassilios Skouris, who took over as FIFA's chief ethics judge following Infantino's election as president.

In the email Skouris sent draft changes to FIFA’s ethics rules to the FIFA chief which he had been working on with chief ethics investigator Colombian Maria Claudia Rojas, Spiegel said.

Agencies


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