Lausanne (AFP)

Former FIFA number 2 Jérôme Valcke and beIN and PSG boss Nasser Al-Khelaïfi will know their fate on October 30, after their trial in Switzerland closes Thursday in a television rights case.

The Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona has put its decision under advisement after ten days of hearing devoted to one of the multiple scandals of world football, and which saw two irreconcilable theories clash.

On the one hand, the prosecution requested 3 years of imprisonment against Jérôme Valcke and 28 months against Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, accompanied by a partial suspension, describing a pact concluded by the two leaders behind the back of Fifa and falling under "unfair management".

For the prosecution, Mr. Valcke cashed his support for beIN in exchange for "the exclusive use" of a luxury villa on the Sardinian Emerald Coast, bought for him 5 million euros at the end of 2013 by a company briefly owned by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi.

The former secretary general of Fifa admitted to having requested the assistance of the Qatari leader to finance the "Villa Bianca", a few months before the signing in April 2014 of a contract between beIN and the football body relating to rights in North Africa and the Middle East of the 2026 and 2030 Worlds.

But for the defendants, who each plead the release, the two episodes have "nothing to do": they in turn evoked a "private" arrangement, ensuring that paying bribes would have made no sense so much beIN, the only one in contention, has paid a very high amount of which Fifa has never complained.

The defense of Nasser Al-Khelaïfi also contests "the instigation of unfair management", the only charge remaining since the prosecution had to abandon that of "private corruption", due to an agreement at the end of January between the boss of beIN and Fifa.

My Marc Bonnant, Grégoire Mangeat and Fanny Margairaz, who from the outset have denounced an "artificial" qualification designed by the prosecution to "try to save his case", stressed Thursday morning that their client had never "incited or encouraged" Mr. Valcke to anything.

Whether the occupation of Villa Bianca is "due or undue", the former Canal + journalist "had no intention" of informing FIFA.

"His resolution was already taken" and "totally foreign" to the Qatari leader, added Me Bonnant to AFP.

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