Marco Villiger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marco Thomas Villiger (born March 14, 1975 , resident in Oberrüti ) is a Swiss lawyer and former FIFA official .

Career

Villiger studied law at the University of Zurich until 2000 . In 2002 he was admitted to the bar and was appointed head of the disciplinary area at FIFA, which includes doping cases , player bans and sports betting . In 2007 he was promoted to Director of the FIFA Legal Department, making him Chief Legal Officer of the association. In this role he was responsible for all four areas of the department - player status, commercial legal issues, discipline and corporate legal. He thus covered a very broad spectrum, which included such diverse cases and tasks as disputes over player transfers, sponsorship and license agreements, disciplinary measures and compliance issues. During this time he was also a member of the IOC entourage commission , which has an important advisory role to various bodies of the International Olympic Committee . In 2016 he also became Deputy Secretary General of FIFA.

In 2018 he left FIFA, started his own business as a consultant and founded MV Sports Consulting AG in Langnau am Albis . He also works as a lecturer in international sports law at the University of Zurich.

Live and act

During his 16 years at FIFA, Villiger was both a close confidante and lawyer of the former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and a close collaborator of his successor Gianni Infantino . During his tenure he was appointed Deputy Secretary General. As Chief Legal Officer of FIFA, Villiger had access to all contracts, was the secretary of the legal organs and the main point of contact of FIFA with the United States Department of Justice . Villiger was considered a cleaner of FIFA and campaigned for its reforms.

Due to his role at FIFA, Villiger was exposed and involved in various legal cases, both during the Blatter era and during Gianni Infantino's tenure. From 2014 he was drawn into public disputes several times.

In spring 2014, the media reported that Villiger had allegedly had several explosive passages deleted from a final report commissioned by FIFA from anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth . It was about the role of FIFA in the bribe scandal surrounding the former rights agency ISL . Pieth rejected this representation, and underlined the independence of his work in a reaction to the representation of the news magazine Der Spiegel .

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter has accused Villiger of multiple breaches of trust in connection with the leakage of internal documents since 2017 (" In addition, chief lawyer Marco Villiger, [...] was my shop steward . And he apparently abused this trust. ") and hiring a US law firm without their knowledge and consent.

In August 2017, it became known that Marco Villiger had accepted an Audemars Piguet watch, which cost around 15,000 euros, as a gift from a sheikh . The acceptance of gifts with a value exceeding the symbolic is a violation of Article 20 of the FIFA Code of Ethics. After research by the NZZ, Villiger received the watch in a paper sack that he only opened in his office. He then immediately reported the incident to then General Secretary Jérôme Valcke and handed the watch over to FIFA. Villiger reported the incident to the ethics committee, which described his actions as flawless.

In September 2018, Michel Platini filed a lawsuit against unknown persons with the district attorney in Paris for defamation and formation of a criminal association (" association de malfaiteurs en vue de commettre le délit de dénonciation calomnieuse "). These are said to be Sepp Blatter, Domenico Scala and Villiger, whom Platini accuses of having reported him to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office regarding a two million payment.

In autumn 2018, a confidential 16-page FIFA internal memo was leaked to the media, the author of which was Marco Villiger together with another FIFA lawyer. In this memo, the risks and disadvantages of a rights sale planned by Infantino were pointed out and warned against their implementation.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Bendoni Consulting: Marco Villiger. In: Globe Soccer. Retrieved July 8, 2019 (American English).
  2. Voser, Nathalie, 2014. 10 Years of Swiss Rules of International Arbitration. ASA Special Series No. 44 , section "about the session chairs and panelists", p. xxi. Excerpt available on Google Books .
  3. FIFA: Restructuring FIFA for a more powerful and sustainable organization. In: Media release of July 8, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2019 .
  4. Life after FIFA - ex-chief lawyer Marco Villiger on new paths. Accessed July 8, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).
  5. ^ Excerpt from the commercial register of MV Sports Consulting AG , Commercial Register Office of the Canton of Zurich
  6. Overview of lecturers in the field of international sports law at the University of Zurich.
  7. Gianni Infantino suspends his fiefdom before he is re-elected to the top of FIFA. February 4, 2019, Retrieved July 8, 2019 (American English).
  8. Elmar Wagner: Head lawyer Villiger is promoted | NZZ . May 30, 2016, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  9. ^ News Analysis: Villiger's FIFA exit reinforces Infantino's pre-election global supremacy. In: Inside World Football. August 22, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2019 (UK English).
  10. Elmar Wagner: The last top executive from the Joseph Blatter era leaves Fifa | NZZ . August 20, 2018, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  11. Elmar Wagner: The last top executive from the Joseph Blatter era leaves Fifa | NZZ . August 20, 2018, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed July 9, 2019]).
  12. Final report by the Independent Governance Committee to the Executive Committee of FIFA , final report of the Independent Governance Committee (IGC) from 2015.
  13. : Fifa boss Blatter influenced the reform report of the anti-corruption expert Pieth . In: Spiegel Online . February 6, 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 11, 2019]).
  14. WORLD: Revelation: Serious allegations of Uefa against Sepp Blatter . February 9, 2015 ( welt.de [accessed July 11, 2019]).
  15. Michael Wulzinger: affairs: "Treated cleanly" . In: Spiegel Online . tape 7 , February 7, 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed on July 12, 2019]).
  16. Blatter is said to have influenced the Fifa report , Handelszeitung dated February 7, 2015, accessed on July 27, 2019.
  17. Andreas Böni: Sepp Blatter deeply shocked in an exclusive interview: "I feel betrayed by my own people". August 13, 2017, accessed July 8, 2019 .
  18. Tim Röhn: Sepp Blatter and Fifa: The plot . In: Spiegel Online . August 13, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  19. Tim Röhn: Soccer: Attractive clock . In: Spiegel Online . tape 32 , August 5, 2017 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  20. ^ Spiegel: FIFA investigation against Villiger and Al Khalifa. Retrieved July 8, 2019 .
  21. FIFA.com: FIFA Code of Ethics. Retrieved July 24, 2019 .
  22. Elmar Wagner: A luxury watch from the sheikh for the chief lawyer | NZZ . August 4, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  23. Fifa scandal: Platini sued former colleagues . In: Spiegel Online . October 12, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  24. ^ FIFA: Platini contre-attaque au pénal . October 12, 2018 ( lemonde.fr [accessed July 8, 2019]).
  25. Sur tous les fronts judiciaires: les quatre plaintes de Michel Platini. Retrieved July 9, 2019 (French).
  26. Claudio Catuogno, Thomas Kistner: Infantino plans to sell of world football in secret . In: sueddeutsche.de . November 16, 2018, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed July 9, 2019]).