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UEFA HQ Raided As Authorities Seize TV Contracts

UEFA was raided by Swiss police on Wednesday, hours after new FIFA President Gianni Infantino was "dragged into the Panama Papers affair," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. Federal officers "swooped unannounced" on UEFA’s Nyon HQ and seized details of a contract signed off by its former general secretary with one of the men at the center of world football’s corruption scandal. The raid, with which UEFA said that it "fully co-operated, was carried out after International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the latest revelations from the Panama Papers leak." Confirming the raid, UEFA said, "UEFA can confirm that today we received a visit from the office of the Swiss Federal Police acting under a warrant and requesting sight of the contracts between Uefa and Cross Trading/Teleamazonas. Naturally, Uefa is providing the Federal Police with all relevant documents in our possession and will cooperate fully" (TELEGRAPH, 4/6). In London, James Riach reported the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland said that the search was "motivated by the suspicion of criminal mismanagement" relating to the sale of TV rights but that "no specific individual is being targeted by these proceedings." The statement said, "The suspicion is based on the result of findings that have emerged from other proceedings, as well as the corresponding financial analyses carried out by the OAG" (GUARDIAN, 4/6). REUTERS' Stephanie Nebehay reported media reports on Tuesday said that UEFA sold rights for Champions League matches to Argentine pair Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, owners of Cross Trading, who "allegedly resold them to Ecuadorean broadcaster Teleamazonas for three times as much." Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are "among several dozen football officials indicted" in the U.S. as part of a "huge corruption scandal which has swept the game and thrown FIFA into turmoil" (REUTERS, 4/6). 

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