Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter remains the target of the world governing body’s Ethics Committee as the committee’s Investigatory Chamber announced it opened formal proceedings against him as well as against Jérôme Valcke, former Secretary General of FIFA and Markus Kattner, former Acting Secretary General and Director of Finance & Corporate Services.
According to a FIFA press release, the investigatory chamber will investigate possible violations of the general rules of conduct, loyalty, conflicts of interest, offering and accepting gifts and benefits, and bribery and corruption, parts of the FIFA Code of Ethics in the context of salaries and bonuses paid to Blatter, Valcke and Kattner as well as other provisions included in the contracts of these three individuals. They are also suspected of having breached rules on general conduct, loyalty, conflicts of interest and “offering and accepting gifts and other benefits.”
Photo By Marcello Casal Jr. / ABr – Agência Brasil (Secretaria de Imprensa e Divulgação), CC BY 3.0 br, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3006374
Under the FIFA Code of Ethics, the investigatory chamber shall examine all circumstances of the cases equally. For reasons linked to privacy rights and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the investigatory chamber will not publish further details at the present time.
FIFA said in June that an internal investigation revealed that the three officials had received $80.9 million in compensation over five years, calling them “massive payouts.” The sums received by the trio included 23 million Swiss Francs in “special bonuses” for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, while Blatter and Valcke got a total of 14 million Francs in bonuses for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and 15.5 million Francs for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
This story first appeared in the blog, The Sport Intern. The editor is Karl-Heinz Huba of Lorsch, Germany. He can be reached at ISMG@aol.com. The article is reprinted here with permission of Huba.