FIFA president Gianni Infantino has dropped a criminal investigation into his use of a private jet

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been cleared by Swiss prosecutors of any wrongdoing related to his use of a private jet in 2017.

Infantino chartered a flight from Suriname to Switzerland and prosecutor Stefan Keller called for a criminal investigation, which has now been stopped.

FIFA’s Ethics Committee dropped its own investigation into the use of the jetback in August 2020 due to “the apparent lack of a prima facie case regarding an alleged violation of the FIFA Code of Ethics” – and now a criminal case in Switzerland has also been shelved.

“FIFA welcomes the decision of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG), which has closed the investigation against FIFA President Gianni Infantino regarding the chartering of a private jet to fly from Suriname to Switzerland in 2017,” reads a statement from FIFA. .

“It was confirmed that the travel arrangements made by the Office of the President and FIFA’s Travel Department were in full compliance with FIFA’s compliance rules and regulations – a decision that is in line with the FIFA Ethics Committee’s ruling in August 2020 on this case. . In addition, the OAG has acknowledged that the manner of communication with regard to these travel arrangements was completely justified at the time.’

Although Infantino is eligible for substantial damages, he has waived his right to damages and is simply leaving all legal costs for the case to the Swiss state.

The statement concludes: “Since the proceedings began, the FIFA President has been at the full disposal of the Swiss authorities and remains hopeful that the judicial system will continue to recognize that the current FIFA administration has turned the page on the past and is now established. . as a credible and respected organization.’

A case against the FIFA president originally emerged as prosecutors investigated Infantino’s meetings with Switzerland’s former attorney general Michael Lauber.

Both men flatly denied any wrongdoing at those meetings, and Infantino would later explain that he routinely met with prosecutors from around the world to discuss pending criminal cases in which FIFA had been given victim status regarding alleged corrupt activities ahead of its 2016 presidential election.

Infantino, who replaced Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016, then saw a 2017 flight from Suriname to Geneva come under scrutiny from Keller, angering Infantino and the governing body.

On the use of the private jet, FIFA said in a pithy reply in 2020: “Now, many months into its investigation and have found precisely nothing problematic about these meetings with the former Federal Attorney General, as FIFA had always predicted, and the ‘special prosecutor’ hasn’t even asked to hear the FIFA president since his investigation was announced last July, and today issued an official ‘press release’ saying the FIFA president is now under investigation for something else!’

Their rebuttal added: “Neither FIFA nor its president have ever been made aware of these new false accusations and are therefore unable to comment on them, which is probably the intention of the ‘special prosecutor’.

Infantino has consistently denied wrongdoing and FIFA’s Ethics Committee cleared him in 2020

‘Special Prosecutor’ Stefan Keller’s method of accusing and slandering by publishing press releases without justification borders on character assassination and is denounced in the strongest possible terms by FIFA and its President. FIFA and its President will of course take all necessary legal action and remedies to put an end to these baseless and ill-intentioned allegations.”

In March 2021, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court sided with FIFA after a complaint against Keller, accusing him of going beyond its original investigative brief of the meetings with Lauber.

Two months later, that same year, Keller was relieved of his position as federal special prosecutor in the Infantino investigation after a court ruled he could not guarantee “a fair trial.”

The Swiss Federal Court stated that “by attempting to investigate matters unrelated to his mandate and then publicly expressing his own personal suspicions about them without any objective justification, Mr. Keller had clearly violated the presumption of innocence and the status of the FIFA president.”

The criminal investigation has now been completed.