Fifa ethics committee investigates one of its own members

[ZURICH] A member of the ethics committee responsible for rooting out corruption in soccer's governing body Fifa has himself been placed under a preliminary investigation, the watchdog said on Sunday.

Juan Pedro Damiani was being investigated over a possible link to fellow Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo, one of the soccer officials arrested in Zurich last year, the committee said in a statement.

The committee's chief judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, had recently become aware of a business relationship between Mr Damiani and Mr Figueredo, who is a former head of the South American Football Confederation, the statement said.

Mr Eckert had informed the committee's chief investigator Cornel Borbely who "has immediately opened a preliminary investigation to review the allegations in question," the statement said. "Dr Borbely is currently looking into said allegations in order to determine if there is a breach against the FIFA Code of Ethics and decide any further measures."

The committee statement came after media reports said that possible links between the two had been revealed by documents among the so-called Panama Papers, a huge leak of data from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Fifa is trying to rebuild itself after an unprecedented crisis which has seen several dozen soccer officials, many of them former Fifa officials, indicted in the United States.

The ethics committee itself has investigated and banned a number of leading officials for unethical conduct, including former Fifa president Sepp Blatter and European soccer boss Michel Platini.

The committee has had more teeth since it was split into two chambers, one to investigate cases and another to judge them, in 2012.

Mr Damiani, president of Penarol, one of Uruguay's two most popular teams alongside Montevideo rivals Nacional, has been on the committee since it was originally set up in 2006. He is now a member of the judgment chamber.

He could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mr Figueredo, 83, was one of the seven officials arrested in Zurich in May in the incident which put the Fifa crisis in the spotlight.

He was extradited to Uruguay in December and faces charges of money laundering and taking kickbacks to sell media and marketing rights for football tournaments and matches across the Americas.

Uruguayan prosecutors said in February that Mr Figueredo had agreed to hand over more than US$10 million in stocks and property in a deal to reduce his punishment.

REUTERS