FIFA president Gianni Infantino's lawyer 'completely confident' of criminal probe being dropped

An anti-corruption lawyer representing FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who is facing a criminal probe in Switzerland, said Wednesday he believed the case would be dismissed. “I am completely confident there’ll be a dismissal,” lawyer Jean-Pierre Mean told AFP. Infantino, in charge of world football’s governing body since 2016, is the subject of an investigation by the Swiss prosecutor over suspected collusion between him and Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber, who resigned last month over his handling of a corruption investigation targeting FIFA. However, Infantino has already insisted he had “nothing to hide”. In a letter sent to FIFA’s 211 members Infantino said there were no “factual grounds for the opening of a criminal investigation”. Infantino and Lauber are said to have held a series of secret meetings in 2016 and 2017, but the FIFA head said the meetings were about restoring “public trust in our institution” after a series of scandals. Infantino claims that those meetings “were in no way secret and most certainly not illegal”. Lawyer Mean, an anti-corruption specialist hired by FIFA on behalf of Infantino in May, added: “There is nothing wrong with meeting with a lawyer, even informally. It is quite usual and absolutely not criminal.” The procedure against Infantino, Mean continued, “only mentions an anonymous complaint”. “We still haven’t seen it. We will have access to the file when Mr. Infantino is heard.”