By Andrew Warshaw
May 30 – Damning claims have emerged of how FIFA president Gianni Infantino plotted to overthrow the official who fixed his salary and sought to cut colleagues’ pay to boost his own income.
According to Germany’s highly respected Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper, the plot took place during meetings of FIFA’s newly installed ruling Council just before the recent FIFA Congress in Mexico City.
The paper’s report, based on leaked details, claimed Infantino described the $2m salary on the table as an “insult” and urged Council members to remove Domenico Scala, who led the compensation panel that set Infantino’s pay before last February’s presidential election.
The paper further claimed Infantino admitted he had not yet signed a contract and that he told Council members that unless he was offered more money, he “may have to borrow” from them.
When it became clear that there were no legal means to throw Scala out of office, the paper claimed, FIFA’s legal chief Marco Villiger came up with the now-infamous 11th-hour proposal to Congress authorising Council members to hire and fire FIFA’s independent governance watchdogs, including Scala, at any time within the next 12 months.
In the end, Infantino got what he wanted when Scala resigned as head of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee in protest at what he described as a “smuggled in” agenda item that undermined the entire reform process he had sought to implement.
In a further twist, it appears the move to forward the highly contentious law change for Congress approval was not unanimously condoned by Council members, with England’s David Gill first among those objecting to the alleged manoeuvres to force Scala out. According to FAZ, Gill, a FIFA vice-president, apparently told Council colleagues that his own Football Association would find the modus operandi hard to accept. “Unbelievable,” he is quoted as having said.
FIFA have been quick to respond to the alleged conspiracy, totalling dismissing the FAZ claims.
“Any allegation that this decision would be the result of a ‘plot’ is ludicrous,” FIFA said.
But it did not deny Infantino’s $2 million salary offer or address equally alarming FAZ claims that Infantino rubbished suggestions that his expense account could be the subject of a formal investigation. The paper claims he told Council members he had been assured by FIFA’s ethics chief that such a suggestion would go “straight in the bin.”
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1714153230labto1714153230ofdlr1714153230owedi1714153230sni@w1714153230ahsra1714153230w.wer1714153230dna1714153230