FORMER Chelsea striker Samuel Eto’o has been accused of snaffling nearly £500,000 of Russian cash – as the war for Fifa’s future rumbles on.
Cameroon legend Eto’o, 45, has emerged as one of embattled Gianni Infantino’s biggest backers in the Swiss bureaucrat’s fight to hold onto the leadership of the global game.
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But the ex-Barcelona and Inter Milan forward is facing another fight – with the Fifa leadership being accused of intervening in the demand for a probe into the missing money.
Eto’o’s accusers, ousted members of the Cameroon FA Fecafoot which he has run since 2021, claim the cash was paid into his personal account at a Qatar-based bank after a friendly between the Indomitable Lions and Russia in October 2023.
While the majority of nations have boycotted Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Cameroon are one of the countries to have played friendlies, with the £500,000 being the official “match fee” for the game.
Eto’o’s detractors claim the current location of the money remains unclear and that a formal complaint was made to Fifa’s ethics committee last year but that there has been no contact from Zurich since.
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Their suspicion is that Infantino has leaned on the committee – now understood to have been reduced to an investigative bureau of just three people – because Eto’o is a staunch and public supporter of the Fifa President.
Neither Eto’o nor Fecafoot were willing to comment on the allegations over the cash, while Fifa remains insistent that Infantino has no influence over ethics committee investigations.
A Fifa spokesman said: “The Fifa president has no influence over Fifa’s judicial bodies, which are independent.
“Fifa welcomes legitimate scrutiny. But scrutiny is not a license to amplify unsubstantiated allegations in relation to the Fifa president.”
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It is not the first time that Eto’o – who has been a firm and public supporter of Infantino’s re-election bid even after he was forced to drop the plan to sell off a stake in the World Cup to private investors – has been accused of impropriety.
In 2022 he was given a 22-month suspended prison sentence and fined £1.4million after pleading guilty to a charge of tax fraud linked to his image rights when he played in Spain.
Two years later former Fecafoot executives alleged he was involved in a match-fixing racket, which was strongly denied.
African football bosses ruled there was “insufficient proof” to find Eto’o guilty of match manipulation.
He was, though, initially fined £160,000 for “seriously violated the principles of ethics, integrity and sportsmanship” by signing a deal as a paid brand ambassador for a Russian betting company.
The fine was overturned on appeal in early 2025.