SWISS authorities are reviewing 133 reports of suspicious financial activity linked to the decisions by soccer’s ruling body to let Russia and Qatar host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said Monday.

    That was up from the 103 cases the OAG had reported in August in its investigation of suspected corruption at FIFA, which is based in Zurich.

    Russia and Qatar, a small desert country with no real soccer tradition and where daytime temperatures can top 40 degrees Celsius, have denied wrongdoing.

    An OAG spokeswoman said that the suspicious activity reports came from a Swiss financial intelligence unit called the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland.

    United States federal prosecutors are conducting a parallel investigation into FIFA’s financial conduct, and have indicted 27 soccer officials over multimillion-dollar bribery schemes for soccer marketing and broadcast rights.

    (SD-Agencies)