Return flight in a private jet – Infantinos lie

Thomas Kistner

Updated 15 hours ago—

Suriname. The smallest country in South America, squeezed between Guyana, Brazil and French Guiana, in the north washed by the Atlantic. Gianni Infantino has already served there as world football president. In April 2017, at the end of a trip through various countries in Latin America, Infantino hit the capital Paramaribo. Shaking hands with Head of State Desi Bouterse, talks at the SVB association, visit to the Kamperveen Stadium.

Three employees accompanied the FIFA boss on his trip, including his chief assistant Mattias Grafström. And while Infantino told the hosts the usual (“Suriname needs a new stadium”), Grafström took care of the essentials: the question of how to get away as quickly as possible.

The «SSouth German newspaper » there is an internal Fifa mail traffic that shows that Infantino’s small travel group spontaneously treated themselves to a private jet for the return flight home to Switzerland instead of the scheduled flights already booked. And that the presidential squad obviously used a brazen lie to get the compliance oversight’s approval for such extra costs.

Explanation for the extra costs: a meeting with the Uefa boss. However, that was in Armenia

It is the next affair around Gianni Infantino – possibly the decisive one too much? The FIFA president has been determining the news for months. Just now, the chief prosecutor, federal prosecutor Michael Lauber, stumbles across a series of mysterious secret meetings to which Infantino lured (or forced?) Him. On Wednesday, the parliamentary judicial commission in Bern decided to impeach the federal prosecutor; A criminal complaint has also been filed against the FIFA boss, which is currently being examined by the Bern cantonal judiciary. And now that too: the Suriname lie.

It is April 11, 2017, 8:27 p.m., when Grafström’s assistant reports a problem to Tomaz Vesel, head of Fifa’s Audit & Compliance Committee: KLM airline has the return trip to Switzerland “for technical reasons” by 24 hours postponed. “In order to be able to meet the President’s appointments today in Suriname and tomorrow in Europe, we considered all the alternatives,” said Grafström, “but there is no other alternative than chartering a plane.” The internal travel agency Fifa Travel is checking “Options so that we can fly from Suriname tonight”.

Compliance man Vesel replies 43 minutes later. «Thank you for the information on flight details and the situation. The situation seems unfavorable to me and that it requires immediate action. » And: «Be nice and give me (in the near future) precise information about your already agreed appointments in the region and back tomorrow in Europe.»

Green light from Vesel, who also copied Fifa compliance officer Ed Hanover. Take-off in Suriname.Such exclusive flights usually cost six figures. Fifa does not deny this size even in the specific case. It does not give any numbers on request. And is otherwise extremely buttoned up.

So you have to take the further course of the expensive history from the available mail traffic: Six days later, on April 18, Grafström reports to Vesel and Hanover with the requested details …

According to the rules of the World Federation, the FIFA President must not, without good reason, make additional expenditure of hundreds of thousands or more dollars, at FIFA’s expense and thus at the expense of the global football community. In order to exclude excesses and to monitor the financial behavior of the top people, the world association has prescribed a watchdog like Vesel: formally independent. One who looks closely. And who can earn more than a million dollars in expenses within a four-year period.

For watching. Or maybe rather to look away?

In any case, Vesel wants to know in April 2017 what meetings there were about private jet flights. Grafström reports. He lists seven program items for the stop in Suriname, including the “light dinner with the Minister of Sport, Defense and Finance”.

And what was the urgent date the following day, on April 12th, that justified this expensive return flight?That made it impossible to wait for the postponed KLM flight?

Grafström writes: “The planned meetings on April 12 in Geneva were as follows: 2:00 pm meeting with the Uefa president in Nyon, followed by another meeting in Geneva.”

A summit of the highest football presidents at the headquarters of the European Football Union in Nyon. Okay, you can wave that through. Vesel was obviously convinced. In any case, the World Federation on SZ request on the case: “The flight took place in accordance with the rules and regulations of FIFA.” The rules allow important business appointments.

The only problem is: there was never an appointment for the day with the Uefa president. The alleged meeting did not take place and could not have taken place. The important appointment was an invention. A lie.

–

Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin stayed in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, on April 12, 2017, four and a half hours flight from Nyon. This is demonstrated not least by the lavishly illustrated websites of Uefa and the Armenian Association. In Yerevan, Ceferin completed a dense program: meeting with the head of state, laying the foundation stone for the new football academy, meeting the spiritual leader, visiting a brandy distillery and Echmiadzin Cathedral, one of the oldest in the world.

–

It is clear that such state visits are arranged weeks, if not months, in advance. But: If there was no meeting in Nyon – what was the motive behind the fifa boss’ private jet trip? Did you just want to go home quickly? Was there anything else that would have been unacceptable for approval? Did your own compliance supervisors therefore have to be misled six days later by the FIFA management announcing a meeting that neither took place nor could have been seriously planned?FIFA is silent on all these questions. She does not deny the documented events – and insists that the trip was in line with the rules, even when she asks specific questions.

Published: 5/23/2020, 4:51 PM-