By GRAHAM DUNBAR
AP Sports Writer
GENEVA (AP) – UEFA was raided by Swiss police on Wednesday and handed over evidence of a Champions League television rights contract with an offshore marketing agency implicated in the FIFA bribery scandal.
The Swiss attorney general’s office said it requested raids on the European soccer body and "another enterprise" for suspected criminal mismanagement and misappropriation linked to dealings with offshore agency Cross Trading.
UEFA and its Champions League marketing agency – TEAM Marketing based in Lucerne, Switzerland – made a $111,000 deal with Cross Trading in 2006 for three seasons of broadcasting in Ecuador.
The 2006 contract, co-signed by current FIFA President Gianni Infantino when he was UEFA legal director, was leaked from the database of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
"(UEFA) received a visit from the office of the Swiss Federal Police acting under a warrant and requesting sight of the contracts between UEFA and Cross Trading/Teleamazonas," the Nyon-based soccer body said in a statement. "Naturally, UEFA is providing the Federal Police with all relevant documents in our possession and will cooperate fully."
Cross Trading was named in a U.S. Department of Justice indictment last May as part of a bribery and money laundering conspiracy in international soccer.
The agency is a subsidiary of the Full Play group owned by Argentine marketing executives Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who were indicted last May. The father and son are fighting extradition from Argentina to the United States.
UEFA previously said it had no commercial connections to people or companies indicted in the American case, which is supported by a separate investigation of FIFA business led by Swiss federal prosecutors.
However, after a vast leak of Mossack Fonseca archives was published by international media this week, UEFA has acknowledged its previous response was "inaccurate and incomplete."
"UEFA apologizes for this oversight," it said Wednesday, adding it had no knowledge of a reported deal in which Cross Trading sold on rights to the Teleamazonas channel for a $200,000 profit.
There has been no suggestion that bribes or kickbacks were paid at any stage of the deals.
Infantino made a statement through FIFA late Tuesday, saying "there is no indication whatsoever for any wrongdoings from neither UEFA nor myself in this matter."
Earlier Wednesday, TEAM Marketing defended its deal with Cross Trading in a "fair and open tender process."
"At that time nobody was aware that Cross Trading would, approximately a decade later, be the subject of criminal investigations," TEAM said.
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