In this simple complaint, which AFP has seen, Mr. Karmoussi, 48, denounces concealed work, a foreigner's job without a work permit, moral harassment, psychological violence, threats and working conditions contrary to human dignity.

"Hicham Karmoussi has, for years, worked without a contract or residence permit for Mr. Al-Khelaïfi and at an unsustainable pace," his lawyer, Antoine Ory, told AFP.

For a source close to the boss of the PSG, Mr. Karmoussi is a "criminal" who "in the last weeks has tried to blackmail" Mr. Al-Khelaïfi.

The latter had told L'Equipe in the autumn: "Justice will make its way, I do not have time to talk about these insignificant professional criminals".

"It is a non-event, it is part of the will, since Nasser Al-Khelaïfi is someone known, to make buzz to try to obtain undue advantages," also responded Me Renaud Semerdjian and Francis Szpiner, lawyers of the president of the PSG, threatening prosecution in case of "disclosure of information on the private life" of their client or third parties.

A former professional tennis player like Mr. Al-Khelaïfi, Mr. Karmoussi claims to have started in the mid-2000s to assist "NAK", then to have worked for him "full-time" from 2011, the year of the arrival of his boss at the head of PSG. All without an employment contract and while residing at home.

His working and living conditions with Nasser Al-Khelaïfi "deteriorated" from 2015, he said.

After a first serious personal event affecting "NAK", Mr. Karmoussi would have wanted to resign, without success.

He also and above all states that on 12 October 2017, during the search at the request of the Swiss judicial authorities of the headquarters of BeIN Sports in Boulogne-Billancourt in the investigation into obtaining the media rights for the 2026 and 2030 Football World Cups, Mr. Al-Khelaïfi asked him to "clean the house" urgently in order to conceal possible evidence of infringements.

Mr. Karmoussi would then have "kept" at the request of his boss several supports including "a USB key containing many contracts concluded" with Jerome Valcke, the former secretary general of Fifa, and "burned the rest of the documents".

"NAK" eventually agreed to get him a proper contract between 2018 and 2020, according to the complaint.

Mr. Karmoussi has already been heard as a witness in the investigation into the conditions for awarding the 2022 World Cup. According to his lawyer Antoine Ory, he was not heard in the investigation into confidential leaks around the PSG, in which several former PSG employees or ex-relatives of Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, now in conflict with him, were indicted in 2022.

A preliminary investigation for concealed work has also targeted PSG and Nasser al-Khelaïfi since mid-January after a complaint filed according to L'Equipe and Le Monde by another former adviser.

© 2023 AFP