By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – A month after being handed a 12-year ban from football, former FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has now joined his former boss Sepp Blatter under criminal investigation in Switzerland.
For eight years Blatter’s right-hand man, Valcke is being investigated, according to the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland, “on suspicion of various acts of criminal mismanagement”.
The case was opened “in response to two criminal complaints in which allegations were made” following an ethics committee probe. Although he has not been arrested or detained, the statement said he was questioned by investigators who “conducted searches and interviews” on Thursday.
Last month Valcke was found guilty of serious misconduct including underselling TV and media rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, using FIFA’s funds for private travel and destroying evidence. Ethics investigators had originally recommended a nine-year ban having already extended an initial 90-day suspension by another 45 days to process the case. But ethics judges led by Hans-Joachim Eckert concluded nine years was not a strong enough punishment and banned Valcke for three years longer, declaring he had “caused considerable financial damage to FIFA.”
Despite being widely credited with making sure that preparations for the 2010 and 2014 World Cup tournaments in South Africa and Brazil ran on time, Valcke was fired by FIFA in January based on an internal inquiry into his conduct and expenses.
He has forcefully denied any wrongdoing but FIFA’s ethics committee took a different view, finding that he negotiated to sell World Cup television rights to the Caribbean for below their true value and attempting to destroy evidence and it is these offences which resulted in the searches and interviews by the Swiss attorney general’s office.
Valcke’s fall to earth was in a way more surprising than that of Blatter given that he seemed indispensable and always came across as FIFA’s hard-working, reliable troubleshooter who got the organisation out of a series of scrapes, invariably when it came to World Cup organisers dragging their feet.
His fate was effectively sealed when he was placed on indefinite leave last September within hours of a FIFA ticketing partner alleging that he sought to profit from a black market deal relating to the Brazil World Cup. The plan was never enacted but Valcke was later provisionally suspended for 90 days while FIFA’s ethics committee looked into the case, then dismissed by FIFA altogether.
Valcke had always been expected to leave after the election of a new president but his 12-year ban sealed his fate and now, like Blatter, he finds himself under criminal investigation too, completing the downfall of the two men at the helm of world football’s governing body which is now striving so hard to restore its reputation.
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