Zurich: FIFA President Gianni Infantino has said that he had "nothing to hide" in a letter to member federations of football's global governing body despite Swiss prosecutors launching a criminal probe against him.
In the letter, FIFA chief Infantino said to the body's 211 members that there were no "factual grounds for the opening of a criminal investigation" which was announced last week.
The special prosecutor has been investigating suspected collusion between Infantino and Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber, who resigned last month over his handling of a corruption investigation targeting FIFA.
Infantino and Lauber are said to have held a series of secret meetings in 2016 and 2017, but the FIFA head said the meetings was about restoring "public trust in our institution" after a series of scandals.
He claims that those meetings "were in no way secret and most certainly not illegal".
FIFA President Gianni Infantino faces a difficult time. "I went to these meetings with the most senior law officer in the country in order to offer our full support and assistance in connection with the ongoing investigations because FIFA has an interest and is a damaged party in these investigations," Infantino wrote.
Earlier, Infantino's lawyer David Zollinger said that since the announcement of the investigation his client has not received "any information" from the prosecutor and "has not been summoned" to any hearings.
Former Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber A former prosecutor himself, Zollinger was a member of the supervisory authority of the Swiss public prosecutor's office -- which oversaw Lauber -- between 2011 and 2016.
However, Zollinger denied any conflict of interest, saying that his last meetings at the supervisory authority "took place in June and July of 2016 and at that time no one was aware of the meetings between Lauber and Infantino".
