New FIFA President Gianni Infantino has strongly denied any wrong doing after he was implicated in the ongoing scandal involving the report published by Panama Papers. Leaked documents shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed that Infantino, while he worked for UEFA signed a deal with one of the men at the centre of the sport’s corruption scandal, Hugo Jinkis.
According to the reports, ten years ago when Infantino was director of legal services at UEFA, the organisation sold the rights for broadcasting its club competitions including the Champions League in South America to an Argentinian company called Cross Trading.
Cross Trading immediately sold the rights on to broadcaster Teleamazonas for about three or four times the amount paid, and Cross Trading is a subsidiary of a company called Full Play.
Full Play is owned by Jinkis, who along with his son Mariano, is under house arrest in Argentina after he was indicted in the United States in May last year as part of the corruption scandal which rocked FIFA, and which the current FIFA board led by Infantino have promised to sanitize.
Hugo Jinkis and his son, Mariano, are fighting extradition from Argentina to the United States.
US prosecutors alleged last year that, as the owners of Cross Trading, Jinkis and his son paid millions of dollars in bribes to South American football officials over several years in order to gain lucrative television rights for regional football tournaments.
This is a smack on Infantino's face due to the fact that UEFA has constantly denied dealing with those implicated in the scandal.
Infantino, in a bid to ensure his integrity isn't smeared, posted this statement on FIFA's official website last night.
"I am dismayed and will not accept that my integrity is being doubted by certain areas of the media, especially given that UEFA has already disclosed in detail all facts regarding these contracts.
From the moment I was made aware of the latest media enquiries on the matter, I immediately contacted UEFA to seek clarity. I did this because I am no longer with UEFA, and it is they who exclusively possess all contractual information relating to this query. In the meantime, UEFA has announced that it has been conducting a review of its numerous commercial contracts and has answered extensively all media questions related to these specific contracts.
As I previously stated, I never personally dealt with Cross Trading nor their owners as the tender process was conducted by Team Marketing on behalf of UEFA.
I would like to state for the record that neither UEFA nor I have ever been contacted by any authorities in relation to these particular contracts.
Moreover, as media themselves report, there is no indication whatsoever for any wrongdoings from neither UEFA nor myself in this matter."
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