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Tom Morgan and The Telegraph investigations team |
Uefa paid off an alleged lover of Gianni Infantino while he was its general secretary, The Telegraph can disclose.
The woman received a six-figure sum after the alleged relationship when Infantino was a top official at European football’s governing body.
A Uefa employee, she is alleged to have been promoted by Infantino during their relationship. After she left, the football body is said to have paid for her to do an MBA at a business school that charged fees of about £45,000 a year.
In a statement last night, Uefa admitted that a payment had been made and that it was aware of the allegations that the woman had been in a relationship with Infantino. It said it had since “tightened” its regulations to “reflect those found in a modern, high-profile organisation”.
The admission comes after an investigation by The Telegraph which uncovered serious concerns among senior figures at Uefa over Infantino’s conduct, which will add to the furore over his ongoing role as the head of Fifa.
Infantino joined Uefa in 2000 and spent 16 years there, leaving for Fifa in February 2016.
The embattled Fifa president, who is married with four children, allegedly had the relationship with a junior Uefa employee while serving as general secretary of European football’s governing body.
The woman – whom The Telegraph has chosen not to name – was in an administrative position when their relationship began, but was subsequently promoted to a more lucrative managerial role, sources claim.
When she left Uefa, Infantino allegedly used his connections to find a well-paid new post for the woman, in a similar field.
He also secured her pay-off, diverting Uefa funds that could have been spent on grassroots football, including in the UK.
Fifa has said Infantino “strongly denies” the allegations.
This report is available only to subscribers.
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Allister Heath Editor of The Sunday Telegraph |
I usually spend my time jousting with the far-Left, net zero fanatics, socialists, critical theorists or Islamists. Over the past couple of days, I’ve taken it upon myself to call out a tiny, ultra-vocal group of extremists on the outer fringes of the British Right who threaten to discredit the case for the conservative restoration this country (and the West) so desperately needs.
These reprobates’ central belief is that Britishness is a closed shop, determined by blood. It is impossible for anyone to become British, even if you speak perfect English, embrace our customs, love this country, contribute selflessly and have acquired citizenship: your fate is to remain a perpetual other.
Only those for whom Britain is their ancestral homeland, who can trace their lineage to these islands for as long as anybody can remember (the Normans are probably OK), can be classified as white British, and, according to this reprehensible taxonomy, only the white British can be truly British. When they speak of the British nation, they only mean its white British component.
The despicable implication is that more recent arrivals – Jews, Europeans, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs as well as mixed-race families – cannot be truly British, regardless of how well integrated they are.
This amounts to a rejection of civic nationalism, the idea that a nation is defined by shared political principles, values, customs, language, loyalty and legal citizenship, in favour of a purely ethnic and genetic conception of Britishness. There can be no British dream, no assimilation, just an ever-worsening nightmare.
Such activists, in other words, are racists: horrible, disgusting racists. It is to describe these kinds of attitudes that the word was invented.
They are not merely white nationalists, but specifically white British identitarians, obsessed with genetic background. They are the kind of people who wouldn’t have been uncomfortable with the Nuremberg race laws and apartheid South Africa’s Population Registration Act. They are far-Right racial essentialists, mirroring far-Left woke obsessions with racially defined identity.
Mired in a similarly pathetic cult of victimhood, imbued with nihilism, they misuse terms such as “genocide” to describe the decline in what they consider to be the proportion of real British people on our islands. As far as they are concerned, white British people have been robbed of agency: welfarism and indolence are only problems if they can be traced to ethnic minorities. The woke Right is even worse than the woke Left.
Read Allister’s full column ➤ |
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Charles Moore How did someone so ill-qualified in formal academic terms and actual intellectual ability gain such a position? Continue reading ➤
Tom Harris Kemi deserves praise for daring to be unpopular Continue reading ➤
Nicole Lampert Lowe once fought alongside me for Israel. Now Restore poses a grave threat to Britain’s Jews Continue reading ➤ |
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• Counter-terror police investigating the murder of Ann Widdecombe have reopened an inquiry into a firebombing incident at Nigel Farage’s home. Investigators announced on Friday night that they were looking again into a report of an attempted burglary at a London address in April 2025.
• Andy Burnham is considering blocking the early release of two men who killed Pc Andrew Harper despite previously insisting there was nothing he could do to keep them behind bars for longer.
• A British Muslim charity has been used to bankroll Hamas while receiving more than £130m in donations, the FBI has claimed. The Al-Khair Foundation was used as a front to send money and “truckloads” of goods under the guise of aid, it is alleged.
• The Treasury faces a multibillion-pound hit from Labour’s North Sea shutdown. BP’s former finance chief warned that punishing tax rates and a ban on new drilling had pushed operators out.
• The Government has been warned that nationalising Britain’s water sector would leave taxpayers facing a £140bn bill. This is far higher than the official estimate of £100bn produced by Ofwat. |
Aged 18, with barely two GCSEs to his name, Jason Arday visited a careers centre and encountered one of many callous naysayers who, according to his memoir, attempted to impede his route to stardom. “So he’s 18 and illiterate and can’t do sums,” the careers adviser, Kathy, decreed, before suggesting that Arday volunteer at a supermarket to gain some experience. Given the events of this week, it is certainly likely that Kathy would be recounting her meeting with Arday now, if it did take place. Though, like many anecdotes in his forthcoming memoir Great and Unfortunate Things, it has a whiff of improbability. For subscribers only ➤ |
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Ricky Gervais voices Gus, centre, with the cast also including Diane Morgan and Tom Basden |
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Ricky Gervais’s new series has launched and it’s a stinker. Alley Cats for Netflix is an animated comedy about, as Gervais puts it, “cats, and they swear”. While he voices Gus, the leader of a pack of feral felines, the cast also includes the excellent Diane Morgan (Ann Droid) and Tom Basden (The Ballad of Wallis Island). As Anita Singh, our TV critic, puts it, the show is staggeringly unfunny. When he hosted the Golden Globes in 2020, Gervais poked fun at the Cats film, calling it, “the worst thing to happen to cats since dogs”. Now his new show is the worst thing to happen to cats since Cats. Continue reading ➤ |
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Andy Burnham has pledged the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era, but turning that ambition into reality will be far harder than announcing it. Across Britain, stalled developments, spiralling costs, planning delays and struggling councils reveal a system under immense strain. The Telegraph visited one of the country’s most notorious estates to examine whether a new generation of council homes could solve the housing crisis or simply deepen it. Continue reading ➤ |
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Sorting through a loved one’s wardrobe after they’ve died can feel morbid. I decided it could be a source of inspiration, writes LA Robinson. When I inherited my beloved grandmother’s eclectic wardrobe, I found new ways to style it and tell the story of a remarkable woman. Continue reading ➤ |
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Fringe comedian Alex Kitson |
The Edinburgh Fringe is under way, and I’ve been gathering gags from the festival’s up-and-coming comedians, writes Tristram Fane Saunders. Read my personal selection of lines that raised a smile (or at least an appreciative groan) here. Vote for your favourites, or, if you think you can outdo the professionals, share your own one-liners with us. Continue reading ➤ Here is another article that I hope you’ll find helpful this morning:
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Do you know what you’re going to eat this weekend? We’ve got you covered. Every week, Diana Henry, The Telegraph’s award-winning cookery writer, brings you three recipes for a perfect weekend meal. Meanwhile, William Sitwell shares his view from the culinary world – and a recommendation or two.
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Diana Henry |
Mid-summer and everyone is suddenly back at home. When my sons were much younger I didn’t put a lot of thought into what to cook for them: it just had to be easy and not time-consuming. Now I think about what they would really like – it’s definitely time for a good brunch.
There are plenty of dishes they like – French toast with maple syrup is right up there, and my eldest makes his own fluffy pancakes – but these berry and ricotta hot cakes, a years-old dish I picked up from Australia, are lighter and more summery than the usual. You might think that hot cakes are not enough for a couple of strapping lads and you’d be right. These will be served with really good bacon.
One of the things that has lengthened over the years is the list of dishes I have shared with my sons in other countries. Vietnamese chicken with ginger and turmeric is one of them. It makes a good supper, one over which we will all remember the stew we enjoyed while on holiday in Vietnam. Most Vietnamese meals are served with a small basket of herbs (eating Thai basil, coriander and mint along with a main dish means that freshness is part of every bite), so I will have to make sure I buy some.
The recipe for this last dish – sherbet lemon cake, a treat for the whole household – comes from a great Shetland baker. The final touch is what makes it so wonderful – a cloud of sherbet (you can still find it in sweet shops) is dusted over the top.
Find me here every Saturday and in my Recipes newsletter, which you can sign up to here.
If you’re eating out, make sure to be polite. William Sitwell’s column this week concerns a tyrannical – and famous – customer.
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William Sitwell |
The VVIP was booked in. A local figure who wields considerable power over small businesses. All hands to the pump, charm offensive locked in.
My restaurant, the White Hart in West Somerset’s Wiveliscombe, was geared up to dispense charm and quality in spades, but it wasn’t reciprocated. Indeed, quite the opposite.
“An absolute Karen in tonight,” came a message from Chef Charlotte and indeed the team witnessed an extraordinary display of self-righteous tyrannical behaviour, at the heart of which was a complaint that the anchovies were too salty. Then they tried to leave without paying.
As I write this week, tyrants can join the list of screaming kids and people asking for cheap Merlot: no entry!
Read William’s full column ➤ |
The perfect trifleEvery weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal reader correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
I concluded Wednesday’s newsletter with a question that still occasionally haunts me. Was I right to persist with learning how to drive a manual car, with all the humiliations that entailed, when I could have simply switched to an automatic and (possibly, at least) saved myself a fortune in lessons?
Thanks for your reassuring replies. “Yes, you were right,” writes Tim G. “It’s easy to go from manual to automatic; not so much the other way round. Should you find yourself needing to drive something outside your comfort zone, you can. Also, it’s much cheaper when hiring cars abroad.”
Still, not everyone can resist the lure of an automatic, as Richard Bowen explains: “While attending the Met Police advanced driving course, I continually heard traffic patrol colleagues praising manuals. However, on the extremely difficult final drive (pass or fail), we had the choice of cars, and every single officer opted for an automatic.”
There has also been much talk of trifle (the subject of Tuesday’s newsletter), currently thought to be more fashionable than it has been at any point since 1978.
I’m not really a fan, but there was a certain element of Roger Armstrong’s recipe that appealed to me: “Take a cut-glass pudding bowl and line it with supermarket jam Swiss roll. Pack the base, which provides filling to absorb all the sherry. Pour in cream sherry, limitless quantities. Top with a jar of cherries, drained, but soaked in Kirsch. Cover with top-quality supermarket vanilla custard (Waitrose’s is excellent). Leave in the fridge to mellow for 24 hours. Here I cut out cream topping, but cover as desired. Finish with a sprinkling of grated dark chocolate and toasted almonds.” That’s all from me for this week, folks. I’ll be back on Monday to bring you the best Telegraph talking points. In the meantime, you can contact me here. |
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Welcome to Andrew Baker’s Saturday quiz. Test your knowledge below to see if you have you been paying attention to our newsletters this week...
1. Electric traffic lights were first installed 100 years ago this week at which busy London intersection?
2. Who or what is subject to a midnight-7am curfew in Akureyri, Iceland?
3. Which new television series is, according to our critic, “full of nepo-babies and tedious Eighties nostalgia”?
4. What sporting event, says Gill Opie in a letter to The Telegraph, “offers speed, excitement, sound and fire effects, flags and team shirts”?
5. Prior to his resignation this week, what post was held by Jason Arday at the University of Cambridge?
Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
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Yesterday’s Panagram was ALLEGEDLY. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.
Plus, can you tackle The 1% Club? Scroll down to see if you got the questions right – and play for free on our website and app.
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1963 | Just after 3am, the Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire. £2.6m is stolen from a Royal Mail train
1969 | The Beatles are photographed crossing the street for the cover of Abbey Road
1988 | Sarah, Duchess of York, gives birth to her first child, Beatrice (and our front page coverage the following day)
Birthdays: Beatrice, Princess of York (38), Roger Federer (45), Nigel Mansell (73)
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Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor
P.S. Please send me your thoughts on this newsletter. You can email me at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk. |
Quiz answers:
- Piccadilly Circus
- Cats
- The Shards
- The Hundred, a form of cricket
- Professor of Sociology of Education
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