By Tony Attwood
The article is headlined “Ein paar Lügen zu viel”. In English, “A few lies too many”.
It appears in Süddeutsche Zeitung, and by and large that’s a good place for it to appear.
On 6 October 1945 five months after the end of the war SZ was the first newspaper to receive a license from the US military administration in Bavaria to allow it to start publishing again. The first issue was published the same evening. The first article began:
- For the first time since the collapse of the brown rule of terror, a newspaper run by Germans is published in Munich. It is limited by the political necessities of our days, but it is not bound by censorship, nor gagged by constraints of conscience.
Of course there is no brown rule of terror in England. But there is a form of self-censorship. Censorship of the most invidious kind. For it is a collective self-imposed censorship which means that the newspapers and radio stations and TV stations, and their blogs, among themselves decide what is and what is not news.
Not in some secret gathering of course. Not with rules from on high (although publishers and owners might do this occasionally). But by a collective consciousness of what is, and what is not news.
The possibility that PGMO referees might be biased, and their accuracy statistics simply made up, as revealed to be true by the “no crowd noise” tests. That sort of thing. And the possibility that because in football they all follow each other in defining what is news, a bias has crept in.
We’ve laughed about it a lot, inventing the “Toppled Bollard” pub where journalists get drunk and make up stories, but that tale only came from desperation as the media continue to refuse to engage with the key football stories. And that is not to say that they won’t make them front page news, but rather they won’t run them at all.
Untold has run them, and then sometimes days, weeks or months later the media catches, but really to do their job properly they ought to be their from the start.
So here is today’s news.
“The noose is drawn around Gianni Infantino’s neck” was the heading in SZ as on Thursday, Stefan Keller, the extraordinary public prosecutor of the Swiss Confederation, opened criminal proceedings against the president of FIFA and against his private legal adviser, the Valais senior prosecutor Rinaldo Arnold. At the same time, special investigator Keller applied for criminal proceedings against the Swiss federal prosecutor at the responsible parliamentary commissions Michael Lauber. His immunity from prosecution is to be repealed.
There are four criminal charges against Lauber, Infantino, Arnold and others; more are being added. The crimes are “abuse of office”, “violation of official secrecy”, “favouritism” and “inciting these offences”. Further criminal offences and opening of proceedings remain reserved; they will emerge – this is enough to be getting on with.
The impeachment of federal lawyer Lauber is the first ever such event against a chief prosecutor of Switzerland and the more serious reporters who actually are covering this (ie those in the rest of Europe) say this is disastrous for Infantino. That meeting in June 2017 that Infantino, Arnold, Lauber and his official spokesman Andre Marty want to have completely forgotten, is now in the open.
Infantino has, it is claimed been showering Arnold with FIFA invitations, and a lucrative job. In return Arnold arranged for Infantino to get in contact with the lawyer Lauber. So the ethics committee must examine what on earth has been going on.
And this not least because until mid-2017, this committee had been headed by renowned lawyers: the former New York federal prosecutor Michael Garcia, the Swiss prosecutor Cornel Borbely and the German criminal judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the ethics panel.
The last two of those had brought about the fall of Sepp Blatter at Fifa and Michel Platini at Uefa in 2015 with criminal proceedings pending. Platini was considered only as a person to provide information, which in Swiss law is a status between witnesses and the accused.
But Infantino: oh no, this is much more serious. Hence criminal proceedings. A judgement by a supreme judge has already been issued which charges him with being a participant in a conspiracy to lie.
And what is the UK media saying about this? This conspiracy that affects all of world football. Which is at the heart of Fifa, which is running a world cup in two years at stadia built by slave labour. What is our media saying about corruption on a mega scale and the use of slave labour?
This…
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Little Untold Arsenal, run by a tiny group of pals, is the one place where the news is being digested, translated and presented.
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Hmmm. Could a brief moment of thinking be thought to know that whenever corruption is being fought it doesn’t lie down low or give up to put it’s neck down to be cutoff but rigorously fights back to escape being axe. Therefore, in won’t be unexpected if us see Infantino the sitting executive president of Fifa fights the corruption allegations that are brought up against him to undergo criminal charges proceedings in a constituted Zwisserland Court of Criminal Law to undergo trials and defend himself against the grave criminal charges that he’s being charged and accused of committing while sitting on the Fifa’s presidency chair as president. Which if he’s finally found guilty to have committed the criminal corruption offences leveled against him, he could get an outright sentence sentencing him to a prison jail term or a suspended jail term or a heavy financial fines conviction convicting him. But whichever way he falls to in the conviction terms that has him convicted, it will be expected he resigns his presidency position at Fifa. Or else he will be removed from the position by the constitute authority body charged with executing such high profile officials removal from office position in Fifa. But it’s not only removal from his Fifa president office position that Infantino could encountered as he could be banned by the Fifa ethics and privileges committee from having anything to do with football matters world-wide for some years. And he could also have all what he has illegally acquired forfeited to Fifa or to the State of Zwisserland when sitting as the Fifa president. But nevertheless, it will be unimaginable if us didn’t see Infantino fights back relentlessly using all the avenues all the disposed to him including those at Uefa, Fifa and in high official places of office publicly and privately in Zwisserland government and in the influential private enterprises to save his image that has been tainted with corruption allegations front become immersed in criminality offence charges for the rest of his life. But will he succeed? Well! That’s what I cannot say. But if he goes, the rest of his gangs at Fifa like that Lady Secretary General of Fifa who could at the recent Fifa CAS sitting have aided and abetted the exoneration of Man City FC from breaching the Uefa FFP rules must all follow Infantino out of Fifa ultimately for their possible comradeship involvement with Infantino in criminality committing at Fifa.
Well done Tony, thanks for all your good work and keeping the likes of me informed on this and other issues, without which we would have remained in the dark !
Please also pass on my thanks to the rest of the team.
P.S.
I expect there will be a swift influx of new recruits from Yorkshire to Mike Riley’s army since Leeds United are about to be promoted.
The edited version of my comment posting is here below please.
Hmmm. Could a brief moment of thinking be thought to know that whenever corruption is being fought it doesn’t just lie down low or give up to put it’s neck down to be cutoff but rigorously fights back to escape from being axe. Therefore, in won’t be unexpected if us see Infantino the sitting executive president of Fifa fights back the corruption allegations that are being brought up against him that will make him undergo criminal charge trials in a constituted Zwisserland Criminal Court of Law to defend himself against the grave criminal charges that he’s being accused and charged to have committed while sitting on the Fifa’s presidency chair as president. Which if he’s eventually found guilty to have committed the criminal corruption offence charges leveled against him, he could get an outright sentence sentencing him to a prison jail term, or a suspended jail term or a heavy financial fines conviction convicting him. But whichever way he falls to in the conviction terms that has him convicted, it will be expected he resigned from his presidency position at Fifa. Or else, he should be removed from the position by the constituted authority body charged with executing such high profile officials removal from office positions in Fifa. But it’s not only his removal from the Fifa president office position that Infantino should encountered as he could possibly be banned by the Fifa ethics and privileges committee from having anything to do with football matters world-wide for some years to come. And he could as well also have all what he has illegally acquired forfeited to Fifa or to the State of Zwisserland when in office sitting as the Fifa president. But nevertheless, it will be unimaginable if us didn’t see Infantino fights back relentlessly using all the avenues that are disposed to him including those at Uefa, Fifa and in the high official places of office publicly and privately in the Zwisserland government and in the influential private business sectors to fight back to save his image that has already been tainted with corruption allegations front getting permanently immersed into criminal offence charges conviction for the rest of his life. But will he succeed? Well! That’s what I cannot say. But if he goes, the rest of his gangs at Fifa like that Secretary General Lady of Fifa who could at the recent Fifa CAS sitting might have aided and abetted the exoneration of Man City FC from breaching the Uefa FFP rules must all follow Infantino out of Fifa ultimately for their possible comrades in arm involvement with Infantino in corruption offences committeed at Fifa.