N.Y. University law professor Joseph Weiler, who resigned his post on FIFA's governance committee in May, said that he "filed an ethics complaint against FIFA’s top leadership," according to Tariq Panja of the N.Y. TIMES. In it, he claimed FIFA President Gianni Infantino, the president’s top deputy and other senior officials "improperly intervened in their committee’s work" to block scrutiny of senior football execs. The complaint was revealed the same day former FIFA Governance Committee Chair Miguel Maduro told a British parliamentary hearing that Infantino, FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura and others "tried to dissuade" governance officials from blocking Russian Deputy PM Vitaly Mutko "from running for a position on the organization’s ruling council." Weiler and three other members of Maduro’s committee resigned in May after Infantino fired Maduro. The complaint, confirmed by Weiler in a phone interview, and Maduro’s testimony "raised new questions about Infantino’s leadership of FIFA and its commitment to ethical governance." FIFA declined to comment on Weiler’s complaint, or "even confirm that it had been filed with the ethics committee." But it dismissed Maduro’s remarks, saying that the organization has always "respected" its committee’s decisions and that Maduro’s accusations of improper influence were "factually incorrect" (N.Y. TIMES, 9/13).
'SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS': The BBC's Piers Edwards reported a former member of FIFA's governance committee said that there were "serious allegations" concerning the election of Egypt's Hany Abo Rida to the FIFA Council in May. Abo Rida beat Cameroon's Zelkifli Ngoufonja by a vote of 50-4 in a poll organized by the Confederation of African Football. Maduro said, "(Ngoufonja) alleged that (Abo Rida) threw a party and flew in other delegations form the other federations. If that is true, that would be a violation of the principles under which elections should take place." Maduro made the claims when addressing a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday (BBC, 9/14).
