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FIFA lodges criminal mismanagement complaint against former President Blatter Tuesday, 22 December 2020
FIFA has issued a complaint against its former President Sepp Blatter over the suspected criminal mismanagement of the organisation s football museum in Zurich.
The worldwide governing body revealed it had lodged the complaint with a prosecutor from the Swiss city in relation to the agreements that were signed to build the FIFA World Football Museum and the direct involvement of Blatter and other unnamed suspects.
Plans for a museum were tabled by the FIFA Executive Committee in 2012 before work on the site began in 2014.
According to FIFA, the previous administration - led by Blatter - spent CHF140 million (£117.8 million/$158.1 million/€129.2 million) on the renovation with the entire project costing CHF 500 million (£421.2 million/$564.8 million/€461.4 million).
Graham Dunbar
FILE - This Jan. 5, 2016 file photo shows the building of the FIFA Museum, in Zurich, Switzerland. FIFA said on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020 that it has filed a criminal complaint against former president Blatter over the finances of its loss-making soccer museum in Zurich. (Patrick B. Kraemer/Keystone via AP, file) December 22, 2020 - 5:21 AM
GENEVA - FIFA has filed a criminal complaint against former president Sepp Blatter over the finances of its loss-making soccer museum in Zurich.
Soccer s governing body said on Tuesday it suspected âcriminal mismanagement by FIFAâs former management and companies appointed by themâ to work on the museum long seen as a pet project of Blatterâs in a renovated and rented city centre building.
FIFA delves into history to file new criminal complaint to beat Blatter with
22nd December 2020
By Paul Nicholson
December 22 – The day after his election to the FIFA presidency in May 2016, Gianni Infantino attended his first official public function in Zurich at the opening of the CHF 140 million ($158 million) FIFA Museum project.
“This is a place in which football is lived and breathed,” Infantino said. “Here you can inoculate yourself with the football virus, if you don’t already have it. In this place, only football matters!”
Four years later the museum has now been dragged into FIFA’s pot of ongoing and seemingly growing Swiss criminal litigation with the world governing body filing a criminal complaint with Zurich’s cantonal prosecutor against former president Sepp Blatter and members of his management team over the finances relating to the museum.
Fifa has issued a complaint of “criminal mismanagement” against its former president Sepp Blatter.
The complaint, which has been sent to the Zurich prosecutor, relates to the involvement of Blatter and other former officials at the world governing body in the Fifa museum project in the Swiss city.
Sepp Blatter after the fall: ‘Why the hell should I bear all the blame?’ Read more
Blatter vehemently denies wrongdoing. “The accusations are baseless and are vehemently repudiated,” his lawyer Lorenz Erni said.
In documents seen by the PA news agency, Fifa states: “Following a detailed review of historic facts and circumstances concerning the construction and on-going operational costs of the Fifa Museum, Fifa has become aware of many serious irregularities regarding this project, which raise strong suspicions of criminal misconduct on the part of various different officials and companies associated with the matter.