Fifa President Gianni Infantino's name crops up in Panama papers case

Berlin: The signature of new Fifa president Gianni Infantino has cropped up in the so-called “Panama Papers” in connection with questionable TV rights sales in South America, the German newspaper behind the mass leaks reported on Tuesday.

Swiss-Italian lawyer Infantino, 46, succeeded the suspended Sepp Blatter in February as the head of Fifa, which is reeling from the arrests of leading officials last year, as well as the clouds over the awardings of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.

In his then-post as head of Uefa’s legal department, in 2006 and 2007 Infantino signed TV rights contracts for Champions League and other football tournaments with a letterbox company headed by two men who are now defendants in the Fifa scandal, reported the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
But Infantino denied any wrongdoing in a statement.

“I am dismayed and will not accept that my integrity is being doubted by certain areas of the media, especially given that Uefa has already disclosed in detail all facts regarding these contracts,” said Infantino. “From the moment I was made aware of the latest media enquiries on the matter, I immediately contacted Uefa to seek clarity. I did this because I am no longer with Uefa, and it is they who exclusively possess all contractual information relating to this query”.

The two men who owned the company Cross Trading are Argentinian TV rights dealers Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who have both been accused in the Fifa corruption scandal by investigators from the United States.