Several hundred cases still pending, says ousted FIFA prosecutor

FIFA's ethics committee is still dealing with "several hundred" cases of wrongdoing in football, its ousted chief prosecutor Cornel Borbely said on Wednesday.

The Swiss Borbely and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert were not nominated for re-election by the FIFA council chaired, by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, the previous day although both men had aimed to continue as heads of the two ethics chambers.

Borbely told a news conference in Manama on the eve of the FIFA congress that the removal was "unnecessary and because of that political."

Greek judge Vassilios Skouris and Colombian lawyer Maria Claudia Rojas are proposed as successors by the council, pending congress approval.

Borbely said that the ethics committee has conducted 194 probes since 2015 and that more than 70 people have been sanctioned, including former FIFA president Joseph Blatter and ex-UEFA boss Michel Platini. The ethics committee also probed Infantino last year but found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Corruption investigations are ongoing by state authorities in the United States and Switzerland, and Borbely said that at FIFA "several hundred cases are still pending. We have a lot of ongoing investigations."

Borbely said there was no transition to a new ethics leadership, and that apart from two people the personnel in both chambers will be new, with "the most experienced prosecutors and judges gone."

He spoke of a major setback in the reform process from which FIFA will suffer because "they do not have the experience from day zero. You have to develop this know-how.

"Imagine where FIFA would be today without an ethics committee," he added.

He said "it won't get any easier for FIFA" as the personnel changes will also be followed closely by the investigating authorities in the US and Switzerland.

FIFA is still treated as a victim in the American probe, allowing it to seek compensation from those who have been convicted in the wide-ranging corruption probe. (DPA)