ZURICH — Swiss investigators on Friday announced that they had opened criminal proceedings against the embattled FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, on “suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation.”
The case involves a contract Mr. Blatter is said to have signed that assigned valuable World Cup television rights to the control of an indicted former FIFA official, Jack Warner, according to a news release from the office of the Swiss attorney general. The new charges accuse Mr. Blatter of violating his fiduciary duty to FIFA in his role as president by signing the contract in 2005, which it called “unfavorable to FIFA.