Disgraced ex-FIFA boss Sepp Blatter handed new SIX-YEAR and eight month ban from football and £780,000 fine for multiple breaches of their ethics code after investigation into World Cup bribery scandal
- Sepp Blatter has been handed a new six-year ban from football-related activities
- The former FIFA boss was investigated over bribes to secure World Cup votes
- Investigation also found he made various amendments to employee contracts
- The same ban has been imposed on FIFA’s ex-secretary general Jerome Valcke
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been given a new ban of six years and eight months from football, the world governing body has announced.
The ban has been imposed for multiple breaches of FIFA’s ethics code and comes into force when a current suspension ends in October, FIFA said.
The same length of suspension has also been imposed on the organisation’s former secretary general Jerome Valcke.
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been given a new ban of six years and eight months
A statement from FIFA said: ‘The investigations into Messrs Blatter and Valcke covered various charges, in particular concerning bonus payments in relation to FIFA competitions that were paid to top FIFA management officials, various amendments and extensions of employment contracts, as well as reimbursement by FIFA of private legal costs in the case of Mr Valcke.’
The adjudicatory chamber of FIFA’s ethics committee found Blatter, 85, in breach of rules concerning duty of loyalty, conflicts of interest and offering or accepting gifts or other benefits.
Valcke was found to have breached those same ethics code articles, plus abuse of position.
FIFA launched an investigation into officials being bribed to secure World Cup votes
Blatter was originally banned by FIFA for eight years, later reduced to six, over ethics breaches when he was found to have made a £1.3m ‘disloyal payment’ to ex-Uefa boss Michel Platini.
Valcke, whose initial ban was reduced from 12 to 10 years, lost an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in July 2018 over his decade-long ban from football.
Both men have been fined one million Swiss francs (almost £780,000) over the latest breaches, FIFA said.
FIFA’s ethics investigators found Blatter had been involved in implementing a bonus scheme from which he and other officials, including Valcke, had benefited.
It found Blatter had accepted an ‘undue economic benefit’ of 23 million Swiss francs (almost £18m) over the period between 2010 and 2014.
Former secretary general Jerome Valcke has been handed the same suspension as Blatter
The ethics investigation discovered that Blatter and Valcke, along with former Argentinian football federation president Julio Grondona and former FIFA finance director Markus Kattner, had ‘set up a scheme through which they were allowing themselves to obtain extraordinary benefits with a minimum of effort’.
It continued: ‘This vicious circle saw three of them (Blatter, Grondona and Valcke) signing the amendment contracts of the others and approving the respective extraordinary bonuses, while the fourth (Kattner) was in charge of implementing the payment of such bonuses (as well as of keeping the matter ‘off the books’, by not reflecting the bonuses in the FIFA financial statements and not reporting them to the FIFA auditors).’
Investigators found employment contracts for Blatter, Valcke and Kattner were amended ‘without any supervision or control from an internal or external body in FIFA’ and that the officials involved ‘actively concealed’ the bonus payment awards by not fully declaring them in the organisation’s financial records.