Al-Khelaifi to stand trial for corruption linked to Qatar World Cup 2022 broadcasting rights
Nasser al-Khelaifi, president of the Paris Saint-Germain football club and president of the audiovisual group beIN Media Group (part of the sports division of Qatar's state-owned channel Al-Jazeera), will be prosecuted in Switzerland along with Jerome Valcke, former general secretary of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), for corruption linked to the allocation of broadcasting rights for the football World Cup to be held in Qatar in 2022.
The legal proceedings against the two leaders, who are accused of mismanagement and instigation of mismanagement, document falsification and passive corruption, will begin on Sept. 14. A third subject, whose identity has not been made public, has also been singled out by the Swiss justice system for active corruption in his case in connection with this matter.
According to the Swiss Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, Jerome Valcke used his position in the top echelons of international football between 2013 and 2015 to favour certain media groups in the allocation of television rights for international competitions such as World Cups or FIFA Confederation Cups in the period between 2018 and 2030. The alleged beneficiaries are Nasser al-Khelaifi and the other defendant. In return, the FIFA executive received three payments amounting to 1.25 million euros, according to the prosecutor's office.
The latter amount allegedly came from the third defendant whose identity has not been disclosed. Other payments or compensation have been made by Al-Khelaifi to Valcke, but these cannot be investigated or prosecuted any further because FIFA itself withdrew the charges after a criminal complaint was filed against the Qatari president after a "friendly settlement" was reached between the two parties.
Lawyers for the Qatari businessman and PSG boss denied the accusations and said the case was "totally unfounded", claiming that the accusation received was "manifestly artificial". In addition, they said they had even requested the recusal of several prosecutors in charge of the procedure, in addition to filing a criminal complaint following the leaks in the case, as reported by the AFP agency.
Although the Swiss justice system has already reported a few days ago on the rejection of the recusal demands presented by Al-Khelaifi, who was accused in February, against three members of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Confederation (the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office) who allegedly had not allowed the leader to speak on all the subjects he wanted at the hearing that took place on 6 December 2019.
Valcke, meanwhile, has already been suspended for 12 years, reduced to 10 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which was ordered by FIFA's internal justice system for other alleged corrupt activities, such as the resale of tickets for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil or irregular travel on private planes at the expense of international football's governing body.
So, the turbulent episodes around the Qatar 2022 World Cup continue, overshadowed by accusations of corruption regarding the procedure for granting the rights to organise the World Cup to the Gulf State and the granting of broadcasting rights, which included an alleged bribe from Al-Jazeera, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times.
The British media indicated that Qatar, through Al-Jazeera, paid 880 million dollars to FIFA for its World Cup, according to its own sources; thereby violating the financial rules of the World Cup bidding process.
According to leaked documents, just three weeks before Qatar was given the honour of hosting the 2022 World Cup, Al-Jazeera had offered the world football governing body a lucrative secret television deal, which included a $100 million fee if Qatar managed to win the rights to host the World Cup. In this respect, the contract appeared to be a clear violation of FIFA's rules and regulations.
