April 15 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has yet again shrugged off any wrongdoing for signing a contract, when he was at UEFA, with two of those since indicted in the US-led football corruption probe, describing allegations in the infamous Panama Papers documents as a “non-story”.
Infantino’s signature was reportedly on a deal with Argentine father and son Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, owners of obscure offshore company Cross Trading, for Uruguayan broadcast rights to the Champions League.
Last week Swiss police searched UEFA headquarters as part of a “criminal mismanagement” probe into the agreement signed in 2006. The deal was revealed in the leak of 11 million documents that provides detailed information about more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca.
Questions have been raised about why UEFA dealt with an unknown company on a remote Pacific island rather than a recognised broadcaster. UEFA says it had no knowledge at the time that Cross Trading would end up selling on the rights for three times the price to Ecuadorian broadcaster Teleamazonas.
Infantino has repeatedly refused to entertain that there may have been an error of judgement in signing the contract with a third party shell company based in the Panama tax haven. He maintains the deal was the best one on the table at the time.
“I think UEFA has made it very clear. And I have made it very clear, that this whole situation is basically a non-story,” Infantino told Fox Sports.
“Everything has been done completely transparently and properly.”
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