Damiani resigns from FIFA ethics committee in Panama Papers fallout

GENEVA — Uruguay's Juan Pedro Damiani has resigned from FIFA's ethics committee after the Panama Papers showed his law firm acted as an intermediary for a disgraced FIFA official. "We can confirm that Mr. Damiani resigned from his position as member of the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee of FIFA," panel spokesman Marc Tenbuecken told AFP in an email. The Panama Papers indicate that Damiani's firm helped Eugenio Figueredo — the former head of the South American football confederation who is now facing corruption charges in the United States — set up a shell company. The leaked documents also show that Damiani's firm acted as a go-between for a Nevada-based company linked to two other people charged with corruption by the US: businessmen Hugo Jinkis and his son Mariano of Argentina. Damiani, who heads the prestigious Uruguayan club Penarol, has won praise for publicly crusading against corruption in scandal-tained South American football. He has denied wrongdoing in the Panama Papers case, while FIFA's ethics watchdog has opened a probe into the matter. FIFA opens formal proceedings against Trujillo FIFA's ethics watchdog has opened formal proceedings against Colombia's Miguel Trujillo after he pleaded guilty last month in US federal court to four counts, including conspiracy to commit money-laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. "Having examined all of the relevant evidence and based on Miguel Trujillo's guilty plea before the federal court in New York, the investigatory chamber has opened formal proceedings against Mr. Trujillo," the investigatory body of FIFA's ethics committee said in a statement on Wednesday. "As a licensed FIFA match agent, he was bound by the FIFA Code of Ethics." It will investigate payments from Trujillo to several soccer officials, the investigatory chamber said. Last month Trujillo, who also admitted to filing a false tax return, agreed to forfeit $495,000. He was released on a $1.5 million bond and said: "I know that what I was doing was wrong." Trujillo, who lives in Florida, is among 42 individuals and entities charged as part of a US investigation into more than $200 million in bribes and kickbacks sought by soccer officials for marketing and broadcast rights to tournaments and matches.