Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, boss of the television group beIN Media and the Paris Saint-Germain football club, will be tried in September in Switzerland in a corruption case linked to the allocation of TV rights to the Football World Cup. This was announced Tuesday by Swiss justice.
Tried with Valcke and a third man
The president of the PSG will be tried from September 14 by the federal criminal court of Bellinzona (southeast), with the French Jérôme Valcke, former secretary general of the International Football Federation (FIFA), and a third man whose name has not been released.
The three men are being prosecuted for unfair management and instigation of unfair management, falsification of documents and passive bribery. Nasser Al-Khelaïfi is accused of having granted advantages to Jérôme Valcke in exchange for the allocation of the broadcasting rights for the 2026 and 2030 Football World Cups. Jérôme Valcke, then right-hand man of the former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, would have received in exchange the use of a luxurious property in Sardinia, Italy.
Al-Khelaïfi's requests rejected
The prosecution accuses the Qatari and the third defendant, a businessman in the field of sports rights, of instigating unfair management towards Jérôme Valcke. The businessman is said to have given Jérôme Valcke three payments totaling 1.25 million euros. In return, the Frenchman had to ensure that the company MP & Silva LTD obtained media rights in Italy for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Swiss justice said last week that it had rejected three recusal requests filed by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi. Indicted in February, the latter requested the recusal of the three members of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Confederation (MPC, federal prosecution), arguing in particular that "the hearing of December 6, 2019 would not have left him enough time to address all points he wanted. "