FIFA Ethics Committee Member Quits After Panama Papers Leak

(ATR) The road to FIFA rebuilding its reputation under new president Gianni Infantino remains littered with potholes.

Juan Pedro Damiani, a member of FIFA’s ethics committee, has resigned amid an investigation spawned by the release of the Panama Papers.

"We can confirm that Mr. Damiani resigned from his position as member of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent ethics committee of FIFA," a spokesman for the ethics panels told Around the Rings.

The investigatory arm of FIFA’s ethics committee had launched a probe after being alerted to a "business relationship" between the Uruguayan lawyer and Eugenio Figueredo, details of which were revealed in the leak.

In the ‘Panama Papers’ - a tranche of 11.5 million documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - Damiani and his law firm are said to have worked with three men indicted in the FIFA scandal which erupted last year. They are Figueredo plus Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, the father-son team accused of paying bribes to win broadcast rights to Latin American football events. The records show that Damiani’s law firm represented an offshore company linked to the Jinkises and seven companies linked to Figueredo.

Figueredo was one of seven FIFA officials arrested in a raid by Swiss police on a luxury hotel in Zurich on the eve of the 2015 FIFA Congress, part of the U.S. and Swiss probes into a wide-ranging FIFA corruption scandal. He was later charged by US authorities with wire fraud and money laundering.

The ‘Panama Papers’ do not prove illegal conduct by Damiani or his law firm but raises questions about a conflict of interest in serving FIFA.

The Jinkis connection, meanwhile, led Swiss authorities to raid the offices of UEFA in Nyon, Switzerland on Wednesday, where they reportedly seized information relating to a rights deal that Infantino had signed while serving as UEFA’s director of legal services in 2006.

While there is nothing to suggest Infantino was guilty of any wrongdoing regarding the contract, the TV deal's links to the two men implicated in the FIFA scandal is an embarrassing blow to the man who succeeded Sepp Blatter on Feb. 26.

Damiani was part of the ethics committee which ruled on banning the disgraced former FIFA president in December. Now he is out, damaging Infantino's bid to restore FIFA's tarnished reputation.

Infantino released a second statement late Wednesday denying wrongdoing after UEFA had published documents related to the TV rights deal with Cross Trading.

"If my determination to restore football’s reputation was already very strong, it is now even stronger," he said. "Iwelcome any investigation conducted into this matter.

"For the sake of transparency and clarity, it is essential that all elements of this dossier are disclosed, as UEFA has done.Based on these documents, it is clear that all contractual matters were conducted properly by UEFA."

Infantino added: "Should I be required to contribute to bringing further clarification on the matter, I will of course gladly do so.It is in my interest and in the interest of football that everything should come to light."

Reported by Gerard Farek and Mark Bisson

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