Gianni Infantino has been heard by two extraordinary prosecutors appointed to take over the investigation into secret meetings between the president of the International Football Federation (FIFA) and the former head of the Swiss public prosecutor’s office, one of the two magistrates confirmed to AFP.

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Infantino, suspected of “incitement to abuse of power, violation of official secrecy and obstruction of criminal proceedings.”

“I confirm that there was an adversarial hearing in the proceedings conducted by Dr. (Ulrich) Weder and myself. However, I do not comment on the timing, scope and purpose of this hearing,” Hans Maurer said in an email to AFP, confirming information reported by Le Monde and Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspapers.

According to two publications, the FIFA president gave an interview on Tuesday in Zurich, the city where the headquarters of the world football forum is located.

Gianni Infantino, who will run for a third term as the head of FIFA this year, has been involved in criminal proceedings since July 2020 for “incitement to abuse of power”, “violation of official secrecy” and “obstructing criminal proceedings”.

Swiss justice accuses him of having three secret meetings, in 2016 and 2017, with Michael Lauber, then head of the Confederation’s Ministry of State (MPC), fueling suspicions of collusion between prosecutors and FIFA, the civil party to most of the trials. .

The Italo-Swiss Gianni Infantino (52 years old) for his part assured that it is only about showing the prosecution “that the new FIFA is a thousand leagues away from the old one.”

The internal justice of the organization he heads acquitted him in August 2020. She decided to close the case due to “an apparent lack of evidence of any alleged violation of the code of ethics.”

The investigation by the Swiss judiciary was reopened in late 2021 after seven months of paralysis following the recusal of Swiss prosecutor Stephan Keller in May 2021.

Former Swiss prosecutor Michael Lauber, for his part, was excluded in June 2019 from the FIFA corruption scandal investigation due to his undeclared contacts in 2016 and 2017 with Gianni Infantino.

Faced with sharp criticism, Lauber resigned a year later in July 2020 before losing his immunity, according to Agerpres.

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