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 Juan Pedro Damiani was being investigated over a possible business
relationship with fellow Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo, one of the
soccer officials arrested in Zurich last year, the committee said in
a statement.
The committee's chief judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, had recently
become aware of the relationship between Damiani and Figueredo, who
is a former head of the South American Football Confederation, the
statement said.
The committee said it could not give further details on the evidence
of the relationship or on why it might be problematic.
Damiani told Reuters in Montevideo on Sunday that he broke off
relations with Figueredo when the latter was accused of corruption.
"We (had) worked with Figueredo (but) when the (FIFA) issue came to
light we immediately ended a professional link," he said. "My (law)
firm is a firm of 60 people, not just me. ... Until May 2015,
Figueredo appeared to be a straight person."
 The committee statement came after media reports said that possible
links between the two had been revealed by documents among the
so-called Panama Papers, a huge leak of data by the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists that were based on files
from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Eckert had informed the committee's chief investigator Cornel
Borbely who "has immediately opened a preliminary investigation to
review the allegations in question," the statement said.
"Dr Borbely is currently looking into said allegations in order to
determine if there is a breach against the FIFA Code of Ethics and
decide any further measures."
FIFA is trying to rebuild itself after an unprecedented crisis which
has seen several dozen soccer officials, many of them former FIFA
officials, indicted in the United States.
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The ethics committee itself has investigated and banned a number of
leading officials for unethical conduct, including former FIFA
President Sepp Blatter and European soccer boss Michel Platini.
The committee has had more teeth since it was split into two
chambers, one to investigate cases and another to judge them, in
2012.
Damiani, president of Penarol, one of Uruguay's two most popular
teams alongside Montevideo rivals Nacional, has been on the
committee since it was originally set up in 2006. He is now a member
of the judgment chamber.
Figueredo, 83, was one of the seven officials arrested in Zurich in
May in the incident which put the FIFA crisis in the spotlight.
He was extradited to Uruguay in December and faces charges of money
laundering and taking kickbacks to sell media and marketing rights
for football tournaments and matches across the Americas.
Uruguayan prosecutors said in February that Figueredo had agreed to
hand over more than $10 million in stocks and property in a deal to
reduce his punishment.
(Additional reporting by Matias Larramendi in Montevideo; Editing by
Andrew Roche and Jonathan Oatis)
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