More than five years after the fall of the FIFA leadership, a European court has requested prison terms for one of
Joseph Blatter's
closest associates
.
The Swiss prosecutor's office requested three years in prison for
Jérôme Valcke
, number two of the former president of the highest body of world football, for irregularities in the television rights contracts.
Valcke's dealings implicate
PSG president
Nasser Al-Khelaifi
, who could also face 28 months in prison.
Valcke, a former FIFA secretary general, has appeared before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, a Swiss city near the border with Italy since Monday.
These are two cases in which their attempts to get money "to ensure their high standard of living" are being investigated, according to the federal prosecutor,
Joël Pahud
.
Pahud believes that Valcke violated the rules that he himself had designed for FIFA on numerous occasions.
Specifically, he had been bribed three times in granting television rights to various World Cups.
The global amount that the French leader had handled in his businesses would exceed 732 million euros, according to Pahud.
A villa in Sardinia
Valcke, who had to leave FIFA in September 2015, is accused, among other charges, of document falsification and passive corruption.
Al-Khelaifi's role in this process is limited, for the moment, to the help it provided Valcke in 2013 to buy a luxury home in Sardinia, just in the days when BeIN, a company owned by the owner of PSG, was negotiating television contracts to broadcast the 2026 and 2030 World Cups.
The investigation has shown that the Qatari businessman, one of the most influential men in European football today, bought a house in Sardinia for five million euros before making it available to Valcke.
For his part, the 60-year-old former FIFA general secretary has recognized contacts with Al-Khelaifi, whom he has recognized as a great friend for more than a decade.
Likewise, Valcke's lawyers have argued as a mitigating factor that his client has not been able to return to work since his hasty goodbye at FIFA.
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