Former FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke has been banned from all football-related activity for 12 years.
The decision was made by the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee due to a TV rights scandal, fiddling expenses and touting World Cup tickets.
An investigation was made into allegations of misconduct, finding that “a sports marketing firm had gained an undue advantage from the selling of FIFA World Cup tickets.
Former FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke has been banned from all football-related activity for 12 years.
The decision was made by the adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee due to a TV rights scandal, fiddling expenses and touting World Cup tickets.
An investigation was made into allegations of misconduct, finding that “a sports marketing firm had gained an undue advantage from the selling of FIFA World Cup tickets.
“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.
“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.
“In summary, the conduct of Mr Valcke as Secretary General of FIFA constituted a violation of article 13 (General rules of conduct), article 15 (Loyalty), article 16 (Confidentiality), article 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting), article 19 (Conflicts of interest), article 20 (Offering and accepting gifts and other benefits) and article 41 (Obligation of the parties to collaborate) of the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE).
“In consequence, Mr Valcke has been banned for 12 years from all football related activities and fined CHF 100,000.”