KPMG Switzerland launches internal probe into FIFA audits
Earlier this year FIFA's audit and compliance committee agreed to keep KPMG Switzerland on as auditors for 2015-2018
AS THE ONGOING FALLOUT from FIFA’s corruption scandal continues apace, its auditors KPMG has announced it will conduct an internal probe into its Swiss arm’s audits of world football’s governing body.
A spokesman for the Big Four firm said it has launched an internal review of its Swiss outfit regarding the audits it conducted at FIFA, Reuters reports.
Earlier this year, FIFA’s audit and compliance committee agreed to keep it on as auditors for 2015/2018.
KPMG Switzerland’s audits for FIFA were now being examined “in consultation” with parent company, KPMG International, its spokesman Andreas Hammer, said.
Both the US Department of Justice and the Swiss Attorney General’s Office are probing alleged corruption within Zurich-based FIFA, following the indictment of 14 senior officials in May.
Just last week, Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s second-highest ranking official, was on leave following allegations that he planned to re-sell 2014 World Cup tickets for a massively inflated profit.
KPMG Switzerland, which has been responsible for auditing FIFA’s financial reports since 1999, is bound by law to report any discovered irregularities.
In June, FA chairman Greg Dyke expressed his delight at the resignation of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and called for a full scale investigation into the “cloud of corruption” surrounding football’s governing body and questioned the role of its auditors KPMG Switzerland.
Dyke called for a probe into payments totalling $10m (£7m) paid from FIFA to an account controlled by former vice president Jack Warner, which lies at the centre of a US Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation into alleged corruption at FIFA.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Dyke said: “Someone should go to the auditors (KPMG) and say, ‘Hang on, where actually did that come from and go to. Where is it in accounts? Did you know about this?’ Respectable auditors will not like being involved in this sort of stuff.”
