Grasshopper appoints former FIFA executive Linsi

Struggling Swiss football giants Grasshopper appointed former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi as chief executive on Friday to help solve its mounting cash crisis.

The most successful team in Swiss history has debts believed to be more than 10 million Swiss francs (€6.6 million) and will be demoted from the top division if it fails to persuade the league it can meet its financial commitments next season.

Linsi worked for the Credit Suisse bank before joining FIFA as finance director in 1999. He was the organization’s general secretary, serving as No. 2 to president Sepp Blatter, from 2002-07.

His main tasks will be to find new investors and end a bureaucratic stalemate that has left Grasshopper without its own stadium for the past two years.

It shares the city-owned Letzigrund arena with FC Zurich while attempts to replace its former Hardturm stadium have been tied up in legal and planning disputes.

Grasshopper won the last of its record 27 Swiss league titles in 2003 and is currently eighth in the 10-team division, two points ahead of last-place Aarau.

It played in the lucrative Champions League in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons, but largely missed out on football’s boom in television and marketing revenues because the Swiss league has a low international profile.