September 14: FIFA president Gianni Infantino and his legal team still refuse to show any form of accountability to member associations, stakeholders or even the legal profession for their attempt to sell all of FIFA’s competition rights to a new private equity-backed business: FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE).
In the US Infantino has not provided the documents, requested by Democrat Jamie Raskin, as well as refusing to respond to a request to appear before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House. The deadline to produce the files and contact the commission to arrange an interview was August 9.
Reports say he has had no contact with the Republican-controlled committee. Raskin accuses Infantino of bribing US President Donald Trump after entering Trump’s inner circle.
In Europe, FIFA’s legal committee similarly refused to answer “critical questions” at a delegates’ meeting about the FFE scandal.
Danish FA (DBU) president Jesper Moller told Reuters he was surprised the FFE was not on the agenda as he again called for Infantino’s resignation saying FIFA cannot rebuild its credibility under its current leadership.
“I naturally used the meeting to ask a number of critical questions about the process, which I still consider to have been deeply problematic,” Moller said in a statement.
“I am surprised that the FIFA Forward Enterprise has not been discussed by the Legal Committee, which is precisely the body that should be consulted on legal matters relating to FIFA… Obviously, this would have been a good opportunity for the FIFA management to explain themselves.”
“We will continue to press for answers and I am sure we will get to the bottom of this completely unacceptable matter,” Moller added.
FIFA is an expert at obfuscating football’s hottest issues, and especially when they surround its president, who hides behind an iron wall of zealous protection from senior staff.
UEFA has filed discovery proceedings in the United States in three jurisdictions to seek information for a possible legal case against Switzerland. Infantino has responded through US Attorney Andrew Levender of Dechert, requesting that the discovery proceedings be dismissed.
UEFA also filed discovery against Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner and the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Thrive lined up to take the $4.2 billion ownership position of the FIFA rights that had not been tendered.
Kushner has appointed US Attorney Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel.
Spiro is one of America’s leading trial lawyers and has a reputation for a no-holds-barred approach. Quinn Emanuel represented FIFA during the FIFAgate scandal and was instrumental in FIFA’s status changing from being seen as a criminal organization by the FBI to becoming a victim of bribery and corruption.
Even discovery will inevitably be aggressively resisted, and even if granted, will likely take months to come to fruition as Infantino and Kushner’s lawyers are stalling the process.
Granting discovery isn’t straightforward either, and while this case is clear in UEFA’s eyes, U.S. judges are unlikely to move into the nitty-gritty of a case that won’t be seen in their courts. Judges would be more motivated to grant discovery if the Swiss judiciary had opened a criminal case.
According to a US legal source, the likelihood of UEFA being able to build a criminal case in the US does not seem very high due to Trump’s control over the judiciary, a leaf he appears to have taken from Infantino’s book.
A civil case is more likely, as it can be filed by either party.
However, using the argument that Infantino, Thrive and their advisors attempted to defraud FIFA’s member associations (ultimately the owners of FIFA which for many provide the bulk of their revenue) out of billions of dollars, criminal and civil cases could then be brought against Infantino and FIFA in multiple jurisdictions around the world.
In 2015, the US Department of Justice issued more than 40 indictments against FIFA administrators for fraud, bribery and extortion. They eventually raised about $200 million from individuals and marketing companies.
Infantino and his co-conspirators are being charged with attempted multimillion-dollar fraud. This is a completely different scale to the FIFAgate scandal and the US DoJ is promising to clean up football for the world.
UEFA’s position, which is echoed by virtually all football stakeholders around the world, is that if there is nothing to hide in the discovery, why try to hide it?
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