UEFA HAS CONFIRMED a \u201cdeparture payment\u201d was made to a female employee who is alleged to have been in a relationship with Gianni Infantino while he was the organisation\u2019s general secretary.<\/p>\n
The Daily Telegraph reported on Friday night that the woman received a six-figure sum following the alleged relationship with current Fifa president Infantino.<\/p>\n
A Fifa spokesman told the Telegraph that \u201cFifa president Gianni Infantino strongly denies these allegations, and they are categorically untrue\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Uefa confirmed a payment was made along with covering the fees for an MBA course, which it said was \u201cin line\u201d with regulations at the time.<\/p>\n
The report comes as pressure mounts on Infantino following his plan to seek private investment in a company which would run Fifa\u2019s competitions, including the men\u2019s and women\u2019s World Cups.<\/p>\n
Infantino worked at Uefa for 16 years and was its general secretary from 2009 before being elected as Fifa president in February 2016.<\/p>\n
A Uefa spokesperson said: \u201cWe are aware of the allegations and can confirm a departure payment was made to the individual in question, coupled with the payment of fees for a MBA course at a local business school.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe payment was in line with the regulations that existed for departing staff at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch regulations have been tightened since 2016 and the current staff regulations \u2013 which apply to all UEFA employees at whatever level \u2013 reflect those found in a modern, high-profile organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Infantino has found himself under pressure for over a week following a controversial plan to sell stakes to private investors in a company to run the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The plan was rejected by Uefa and two other continental confederations. On Wednesday, Infantino was backed by Fifa\u2019s management board following a meeting in Morocco and issued an apology over the process.<\/p>\n
Uefa\u2019s threat for its 55 member countries to boycott Fifa competitions until the plan was scrapped remains, with the European confederation saying on Thursday that Wednesday\u2019s announcement \u201cchanges nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Written by Press Association and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won\u2019t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women\u2019s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UEFA HAS CONFIRMED a \u201cdeparture payment\u201d was made to a female employee who is alleged to have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,74963,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,1186,4335,7,8,19413,90443],"class_list":["post-628138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-none","tag-soccer","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-uefa","tag-under-pressure"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117063918729497093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}