Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money

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61. Playing both sides

Here you go.

The past year was a tough one for FIFA, one that included an FBI investigation, arrests, and Sepp Blatter’s ban. Indeed, the world football association’s ethics committee, ostensibly its last bastion of decency, has had its work cut out for it lately. Not only did the committee suspend Blatter, it also banned UEFA boss Michel Platini, FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke, and a long line of other senior officials. They also investigated Franz Beckenbauer, chairman of the organization committee for the 2006 World Cup – Germany’s “summer fairytale” – and those who helped him make it happen.

The ethics committee’s credibility depends largely on the personal integrity of its leaders. Cornel Borbely, the Swiss lawyer who chairs the investigatory chamber, already has several complex investigations under his belt. The German chairman of the committee’s adjudicatory chamber, Hans Joachim Eckert, spent many years working as a criminal judge at Munich’s district court. It would be reasonable to expect that all members of these two bodies have been hand picked to serve as a corrective for the tarnished world football association. However, several of the 14 members were appointed during Blatter’s reign. In fact, three of them have sat on the ethics committee since it was established on October 23, 2006, including Juan Pedro Damiani.

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Damiani is an influential attorney from Uruguay and one of the country’s wealthiest men. He is also president of Peñarol Montevideo, the country’s most popular football team. In Eckert’s chamber, he sits in judgments over potentially corrupt FIFA members. Now, as a result of the Panama Papers revelations, Damiani has a problem of his own: the ethics committee has launched a preliminary investigation of its own member.

Managing shell companies appears to be one of Damiani’s areas of expertise. The Panama Papers show that his law firm J.P. Damiani is among the bigger clients of Mossack Fonseca (Mossfon), a provider of offshore companies. Until now, Damiani’s firm has managed more than 400 such companies, many of which have been involved in scandals. The leaked documents reveal that Damiani, the FIFA ethics expert, also managed companies through which FIFA members may have received bribes.

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56fec130a1bb8d3c3495ae00/