(Reuters) – FIFA’s independent ethics committee has cleared the organisation’s president Gianni Infantino of any alleged breach of its code, world soccer’s governing body said on Wednesday.
Swiss authorities last month decided to open criminal proceedings against Infantino to look into meetings between the FIFA chief and Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber.
Lauber and Infantino have denied any wrongdoing.
“Based on the information available to date, no aspect of the conduct analysed constitutes a violation of the FIFA regulations,” FIFA said in a statement, which noted it had received a complaint on June 21.
“…some aspects do not even fall within the provisions of the FIFA code of ethics, or justify the adoption of any kind of measure, including that of a provisional suspension.”
FIFA has previously said that Swiss special prosecutor Stefan Keller, who opened the proceedings, has “presented no serious elements or legal basis for the opening of any investigation and lacks any detail as to the substance of the case”.
FIFA was embroiled in the worst corruption scandal in its history in 2015 which led to several officials being indicted in the United States on corruption-related charges.
Infantino was elected in 2016 to replace Sepp Blatter, who was the subject of criminal proceedings in 2015.
Blatter was banned by FIFA’s ethics committee, although the investigations against him are still ongoing and he has not been charged. He denies wrongdoing.
On being elected, Infantino promised to clean up FIFA and to put the focus back on football.
(Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
