Jérôme Valcke, the former right-hand man to the FIFA president Sepp Blatter, has been banned from football for 12 years following allegations of potential misconduct related to the sale of tickets for World Cups.
FIFA said that during its investigations it had uncovered other acts of potential misconduct by Valcke, including abuse of travel expenses, the sale of TV and other media rights and the destruction of evidence.
In the judgment from the adjudicatory chamber of the ethics committee, Fifa added: “Among other things, the adjudicatory chamber found that a sports marketing firm had gained an undue advantage from the selling of World Cup tickets. In this respect, not only did Mr Valcke do nothing to stop these activities, he even encouraged the persons responsible to do so. Furthermore, Mr Valcke repeatedly encouraged them to breach an agreement concluded between Fifa and the sports marketing firm.
“Moreover, by travelling at Fifa’s expense purely for sightseeing reasons as well as repeatedly choosing private flights for his trips over commercial flights without any business rationale for doing so, Mr Valcke gained an advantage for himself and relatives. In doing so, Mr Valcke acted against Fifa’s best interests and caused considerable financial damage to Fifa, while his private and personal interests detracted him from his ability to properly perform his duties as the secretary general of Fifa.
“Concerning the issue of TV and media rights for the Caribbean, it was found that Mr Valcke attempted to grant the TV and media rights for the 2018 and 2022 Fifa World Cups to a third party for a fee far below their actual market value and had taken concrete preparatory action in this regard.
“Furthermore, it was found that Mr Valcke deliberately tried to obstruct the ongoing proceedings against him by attempting to delete or deleting several files and folders relevant to the investigation, despite being aware of his duty to preserve all data and to collaborate in order to establish the facts of the case.” Valcke was in addition fined 100,000 Swiss francs.
Valcke’s lawyer said in a strongly worded response: “With today’s decision, the Fifa ethics committee has shown that it is not a credible, independent or objective decision-making body. In reaching an entirely unsupported, unjust and politically motivated decision, it wholly ignored the uncontroverted and exculpatory evidence that had been presented to it. Mr Valcke is confident that when all the facts come out, it will be clear he did absolutely nothing wrong in carrying out his duties for the good of Fifa and the sport.”
Last December Blatter and Michel Platini, the Uefa president who was his heir apparent, were banned from football for eight years by Fifa’s ethics committee following an investigation into a £1.35m “disloyal payment”. Both men protested their innocence and said they would appeal.
Valcke, the former secretary general, a key Fifa figure since he returned for his second spell at the organisation in 2007, was placed on indefinite leave in September after he was implicated in a scheme to sell World Cup tickets above face value and share in the profits. The plan was never enacted and Valcke denied the allegations. He was later provisionally suspended for 90 days while Fifa’s ethics committee looked into the case.
Valcke had become a pivotal figure in Blatter’s administration, responsible for negotiating many of Fifa’s commercial and broadcasting deals. He quickly became indispensable to Blatter when he joined in 2003 as head of marketing and TV.
In 2006, he left FIFA under a cloud after being criticised by a New York judge for lying during contract negotiations with Mastercard but returned less than a year later as secretary general. Since then, he has delivered World Cups in South Africa and Brazil and been entrusted with moving the Qatar 2022 World Cup to winter.
Valcke’s position became increasingly untenable in the fallout from the February raids in Zurich that precipitated Fifa’s near-collapse and the indictment of 35 football officials in the US on charges including money-laundering, racketeering and tax evasion.
By the time he was suspended, Valcke had already agreed to leave Fifa in February at the same congress at which Blatter had promised to hand over to a new president.
