Federal court rejects challenges filed by Fifa secretary Jérôme Valcke.

by Tony Attwood

Jérôme Valcke is the former Secretary General of FIFA who was fired on 13 January 2016 as a result of allegations arising from the ongoing 2015 Fifa corruption case.

Now I know it is difficult to keep up with all the various Fifa corruption cases, because there are so many but in the 2015 case U.S. federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials of Fifa.

In May 2015, fourteen people were indicted after an investigation by the FBI and the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) in connection with an investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and others into wire fraud (ie using electronic devises to defraud), racketeering (organised criminal activity such as with a gang) – eg Fifa – and money laundering.

The investigation mostly revolved around various corrupt parts of the Fifa monolith in the Americas and sports marketing companies that held the TV and marketing rights for the World Cup, CONCACAF Cup and Copa America.

Following on from this we are now heading towards the trial of Jérôme Valcke, Nasser al-Khelaïfi, president of Paris Saint-Germain, and others on September 14 before the Court of Criminal Affairs.

The three men accused of aggravated unfair management, instigation, forgery and corruption. The prosecution accuses the former Fifa secretary general of having accepted from the president of PSG a rather fine villa in Sardinia in exchange for passing over media rights in certain regions for the World Cups 2026 and 2030.

We may recall in passing that in the Italian referee bribery scandal the use of a rather fine villa was a regular inducement for referees to throw games in the direction wanted.

A similar agreement, it is said, was made between Jérôme Valcke and others, which was all part of the Fifa corruption scheme although this time it was TV rights rather than match results, that were on offer.

The defence thus far appears to be that Fifa is not the guilty party.  This could be an amusing defence since its officers are alleged to be at the heart of the corruption, but are saying that they are the innocent victims of fraud carried out by others.

This also seems to be a vision that the English FA (if they have any vision at all) is clinging onto as a way of vindicating their payment of huge funds into Fifa each year – funds that are given to it by taxpayers throughout the UK.

But when former Fifa secretary Jérôme Valcke called for the disqualification of 20 members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (the MPC) of Switzerland and the Federal Judicial Police (PJF) in the proceedings claiming that Fifa is the victim of the crimes against it, and were not part of the corruption, the Federal Criminal Court have rejected the requests and ruled that the defendant cannot challenge the behaviour of Attorney General of Switzerland.

So the objections are out of the way and the trial of Jérôme Valcke, Nasser al-Khelaïfi, president of Paris Saint-Germain, and a further businessman (name not currently revealed) is due to open on September 14 before the Court of Criminal Affairs.

The three men will answer charges of aggravated unfair management, instigation, forgery in titles and active and passive corruption. The prosecution accuses the former FIFA secretary general of having accepted from the president of PSG a sumptuous villa in Sardinia in exchange for the awarding of media rights in certain regions for the World Cups 2026 and 2030.

And it turns out we are talking about bribes of 1.25 million euros or more in each case.

So the trial goes ahead, and it is more than likely that Infantino’s name is going to be cropping up rather a lot in the weeks and months to come.

Whether in the slip stream of all the evidence sloshing around we will hear any more about the way in which Qatar won the rights to the world cup, and the way in which Fifa has exercised no control over the use of slave labour in the building of the stadia in Qatar, I’m not sure.

But the reports on that point are clear and I don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

The fact is that what is needed is the complete abolition of Fifa, but what is holding this back is the dogged support being given to the corrupt organisation by bodies like the FA, and by the newspaper and media industry in England, who buy rights from the FA.

They are also afraid of the Black Lives Matter campaign extending to the lives and well-being of Pakistani workers who have been held as slaves in Qatar.  If that story ever started making it into mainstream media in the UK, there could be a rise in demands that England do not take part which would leave the BBC and ITV struggling as to what to do with its schedules.

For as we have learned, TV schedules are more important than human rights.

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• If all lives matter, if slavery is unaccepable, what is the FA doing about Qatar?