Football Leaks. Gianni Infantino and his arrangement with a Swiss magistrate

In the context of the Football Leaks, revelations on the bottom of football ginned from Friday, a consortium of European newspapers, including Mediapart, point the proximity of the President of Fifa and former UEFA Secretary Gianni Infantino with the Swiss prosecutor Rinaldo Arnold, regularly invited to FIFA matches or events.

According to the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) consortium, "invitations" have been granted to the chief prosecutor of the Upper Valais region at the 2018 World Cup for the Switzerland-Costa Rica match and then the 8th finals between Russia and France. Spain, or in May 2016 for a Fifa Congress in Mexico and the final of the UEFA Champions League (organized by UEFA) in Milan.

"Thank you very much for the tickets for the final of the Champions League, my youngest son is accompanying my wife" , wrote Rinaldo Arnold, for example, to Gianni Infantino in an e-mail dated May 2016.

Asked by the consortium of European media, Fifa replied that "according to the guidelines and internal regulations of Fifa, the President and the Secretary General are authorized to invite a number of guests to tournaments and events of Fifa. this title, Rinaldo Arnold was invited ". The EIC further argues that the prosecutor Arnold would pick up "his phone to collect information on behalf of Gianni Infantino from the Swiss federal prosecutor."

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In April 2016, after the Panama Papers, at the moment when justice is investigating a television contract signed by UEFA with an offshore company, in the context of a criminal case against X that does not directly target Infantino and which will not lead Arnold would have told Infantino: "If you want, I can try to get the MPC to release a press release explaining that there is no case against you."

The EIC also quotes an email of May 25, 2016 where Rinaldo Arnold would show interest in a post at Fifa: "If your new secretary needs a deputy, I willingly propose".

In 2016, the Football Leaks had unearthed the mechanisms of tax evasion implemented in the world of football, especially for the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, accusations made by a friendly agreement of "CR7" with the justice, against a payment of 16.7 million euros.