Qatar spied on FIFA chief Gianni Infantino and Swiss prosecutor meeting: Report

Swiss
daily
Neue
Zuercher
Zeitung
(NZZ)
broke
the
news
on
Saturday,
revealing
that
intelligence
operatives
linked
to
CIA
wiretapped
the
meeting
at
a
Qatar-owned
hotel,
which
also
housed
the
emirate’s
embassy
at
thet
time.

The
NZZ
report
said
documents
and
sources
showed
the
surveillance
was
carried
out
for
“Project
Matterhorn”
–
named
for
the
iconic
Swiss
mountain
–
to
gather
material
on
Lauber.

At
the
time
the
prosecutor
was
overseeing
a
years-long
probe
of
soccer
officials
that
had
begun
in
2014
to
look
for
suspected
financial
wrongdoing
linked
to
World
Cup
bidders,
including
Qatar’s
winning
campaign
to
host
the
2022
tournament.

Sunday’s
NZZ
article
added
to
reporting
by
The
Associated
Press
since
2021
that
Qatar
spent
millions
of
dollars
over
several
years
hiring
the
Global
Risk
Advisors
agency
to
spy
on
FIFA
and
international
soccer
officials
to
protect
its
World
Cup.

After
Qatar
won
the
FIFA
hosting
vote
in
2010,
its
World
Cup
project
variously
seemed
at
risk
because
of
the
extreme
desert
heat,
allegations
of
corruption
in
the
bid,
reports
of
human
rights
and
migrant
labor
abuses,
and
the
economic
and
logistical
boycott
by
neighboring
states.

Last
year,
the
news
agency
AP
reported
the
FBI
was
investigating
whether
agency
boss
Kevin
Chalker’s
work
for
Qatar
broke
laws
related
to
foreign
lobbying
and
surveillance.

The
hotel
meeting
between
Infantino
and
Lauber
was
revealed
four
years
ago
and
is
part
of
an
investigation
into
their
three
undocumented
meetings
in
2016
and
2017
being
conducted
by
two
special
prosecutors
appointed
by
Switzerland’s
parliament.
They
questioned
Infantino
in
January.

The
first
two
meetings
were
revealed
in
November
2018
in
the
Football
Leaks
series
published
by
German
magazine
Der
Spiegel.

After
those
reports
were
published,
Lauber
and
Infantino
both
claimed
they
did
not
remember
the
content
of
their
two
meetings
in
2016.
They
also
did
not
acknowledge
they
had
a
third
meeting
in
2017
that
was
revealed
several
months
later
and
led
to
Lauber
losing
his
job.

The
NZZ
report
was
published
as
global
soccer
leaders
head
to
Rwanda
for
the
annual
meeting
of
FIFA’s
211-member
federations.

Infantino
is
due
to
be
elected
unopposed
Thursday
to
a
new
four-year
term.
He
became
FIFA
president
in
2016
amid
fallout
from
sweeping
American
and
Swiss
federal
investigations
of
international
soccer
officials.

FIFA
did
not
immediately
respond
to
a
request
for
comment.

With
inputs
from
PTI/AP