By Paul Nicholson
September 2 – Timing is everything but a gathering of the world’s federal prosecutors for a conference in Zurich, where FIFA is headquartered, has a certain tragi-comical resonance.
Are they really all going to be in one place at the same time and so close to all those football baddies still holed up in their fortress on the hill by the Zurich Zoo.
Perhaps during coffee breaks the worlds brightest and best prosecutors could, for fun, take a run at FIFA’s golden cage and see if there are any wild animals who have strayed off the reservation. Who knows what they might catch, and imagine the opportunistic PR value.
The International Association of Prosecutors are holding an event starting September 14 in Zurich, and star billing is going to US attorney general Loretta Lynch and her Swiss counterpart Michael Lauber. It is the 20th anniversary of the association who will have, conveniently in the Zurich context, white-collar crime, corruption and money laundering as their main topics.
Lynch and Lauber are both conducting independent and separate investigations into FIFA corruption. The Americans are chasing down alleged bribery, fraud, money laundering and racketeering that took place in the Conmebol and CONCACAF confederations around major events and World Cup rights.
The Swiss are looking into possible money laundering during the bidding contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
But the investigations are not so separate that Lynch and Lauber are keeping their distance. In fact they will be sharing a press conference to outline the “status of the two criminal proceedings” in the same hotel that hosted the Conmebol and CONCACAF delegates at the FIFA Congress last May. Perhaps they are hoping they might have left some evidence behind.
One wonders why they didn’t just straight out ask to see if FIFA’s Auditorium was available and take the party straight into the house of the enemy rather than just having it in the castle grounds.
The prosecutors’ party is a four-day event. If FIFA was a terrorist organisation, rather than the mafia organisation we are being told to believe it is, then there is plenty of time to line up multiple major targets.
Be on the look out for short septagenarians in dark classes, homberg hats and with multiple language skills is our advice. They are not as doddery as they look.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1740571300labto1740571300ofdlr1740571300owedi1740571300sni@n1740571300osloh1740571300cin.l1740571300uap1740571300