Reuters
Zurich, Sept 27: FIFA president Sepp Blatter, already facing a criminal investigation from Swiss prosecutors, may now come under scrutiny from his organisation’s own ethics investigators if they find evidence of potential wrongdoing, according to the FIFA’s ethics procedure.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) said Friday it had opened a criminal investigation into Blatter on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds.
While Blatter, who denies wrongdoing, has not been arrested and no charges have been laid against him, FIFA’s chief ethics investigator, Cornel Borbely, will examine the facts of the case before deciding whether to launch a formal probe into Blatter.
A spokesman for Borbely said that the investigator was forbidden under FIFA rules from discussing the specifics of any particular case but offered an outline of the standard procedure.
“If there are facts on the table, Mr Borbely won’t hesitate for a second to open a preliminary investigation,” the spokesman said Sunday. “When the preliminary investigation leads to evidence there would be a formal investigation,” the spokesman added.
Borbely has frequently emphasised his own independence from FIFA’s power structure, including Blatter. “I am completely independent of any FIFA official, otherwise I couldn’t and wouldn’t do this job. Nobody interferes. I don’t take any orders from FIFA – none whatsoever. I alone decide whether to open, conduct and conclude an investigation,” he had said in a recent interview.