Sports - Football
Updated: May 05, 2021

FIFA, Infantino Welcome Swiss Federal Criminal Court’s Decision To Recuse Extraordinary Prosecutor

By Ridwan Yusuf
May 05, 2021
0

FIFA and its President Gianni Infantino have welcomed the decision of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court (FCC) to remove Stefan Keller from his position as extraordinary Federal Prosecutor.

The FCC emphatically declared that the alleged bias of Keller, as demonstrated by his various media releases, repeated procedural errors, and consistent denial of rights, could not guarantee a fair process.

In particular, the FCC stated that by attempting to look into matters that had nothing to do with his mandate and then publicly raising his own personal suspicions about them without any objective justification, Keller had clearly violated the presumption of innocence and damaged the standing of the FIFA President, contrary to his personal rights protected under the law.

The FCC underlined that for a public prosecutor to communicate distorting, injurious, misleading and factually incorrect information, as well as mere polemics and propaganda, is plainly inadmissible.

The FCC further noted that every party has the right to have his or her case decided by an impartial, unbiased and unprejudiced judge, acting in accordance with the principles of fairness and good faith.

Given his pattern of conduct, in particular with regard to his various media communications, Keller did not satisfy even these most basic of legal standards.

Taken as a whole, the impression was created that Keller was preoccupied with casting himself in a positive light and engaged in one-sided reporting to the detriment of the FIFA President.

The FCC found that, contrary to Keller’s claims, this had nothing to do with objective communication that might have been justified in the public interest.

It was against this background that Keller was removed from his position and ordered to pay the sum of CHF 5,000 to the FIFA President, to cover the costs of the proceedings.

READ ALSO: FIFA: MoU For African Schools Football Competition Signed In Congo DR

As previously and consistently communicated, both FIFA and the FIFA President are fully available to cooperate with the authorities, whether that concerns meetings that the FIFA President had with the former Attorney General of Switzerland, or anything else.