August 20 – Marco Villiger, the brains behind much of FIFA’s decision-making for over a decade, parted company with the organisation today as Gianni Infantino’s regime completed a clean sweep of the old guard that served under Sepp Blatter.
The departure of Villiger, FIFA’s director of legal affairs and the last surviving senior figure of Blatter era, was announced in a brief statement that was typically diplomatic.
“The time for me has come to turn the page to a new chapter, seeking for new challenges,” said Villiger, who was also deputy general secretary and the highest-ranking FIFA official to stay in office amid the FifaGate scandal that brought the organisation to its knees.
Villiger was the lead FIFA contact person with the US justice department investigators during the FifaGate investigations – which the US has said are still on-going – and was responsible for bringing outside legal advisors Quinn Emmanuel from the US to protect FIFA. He is widely credited with having saved FIFA in its deepest crisis and as one former FIFA insider told Insideworldfootball, “was the guarantee (from the US justice department perspective) that FIFA was still alive”.
Early reports are that Villager is leaving following a “loss of trust”, suggesting a fallout with FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
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