December 10 – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter was interviewed yesterday by the Swiss Special Prosecutor Stefan Keller who is investigating the criminal charges against FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
Also present were the Valais prosecutor Rinaldo Arnold (also under criminal investigation), and Infantino ‘s lawyer Zollinger. Blatter was present with his own lawyer.
The hearing of witness Blatter lasted 90 minutes and focused on the three meetings Infantino, Arnold and ex-prosecutor general, Michael Lauber (since fired) had in Berne.
Keller, voiced serious concerns about Infantino’s, Lauber’s and Arnold’s conduct.
FIFA’ s lawyers have been excluded from this and all future hearings in this matter “because Infantino’s conduct had nothing to do with FIFA” – FIFA has lobbied hard and publicly that all three meetings were nothing but an exchange of views in support of Lauber’s investigations. The special prosecutor didn’t accept FIFA’s argument, deciding that the investigation is into Infantino, not FIFA.
FIFA deputy general secretary (and formerly UEFA’s head of law) Alasdair Bell had tried to deflect attention from Infantino via a series of press briefings, however they failed to sway Keller with reports from the hearing that Infantino is very much the target and, according to insiders, judging by the demeanour of the prosecutor, this is becoming a more serious matter than many outsiders had assumed.
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