KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTING —- Jerome Valcke, former secretary-general of FIFA, has reportedly been questioned by investigating magistrate in France over the controversial award to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup finals.

The 61-year-old Frenchman was sacked by the world football federation in 2016 and then banned from the game for 12 years after allegations of World Cup ticket dealing misconduct were exacerbated by abuse of travel expenses, the sale of TV rights and destruction of evidence.

The French daily Le Monde, which is close to disgraced former UEFA president Michel Platini, has reported that Valcke was interviewed witness on Tuesday by prosecutors investigating the World Cup award which was undertaken in December 2010.

Last November former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, now 85, was interviewed for six hours over two days in Zurich by anti-corruption magistrates and police officers.

A central issue in every inquiry over the award has been a lunch at the Elysee Palace on November 23, 2010. This was organised by the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Guests included Platini – then an influential member of the FIFA executive committee as a vice-president – as well as the current Emir of Qatar, Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani, as well as his Prime Minister.

Platini has always denied allegations that he switched his vote from United States to Qatar at the request of Sarkozy.

Blatter has always blamed Platini for upsetting his plan to see the old Cold War rivals, Russia and the US, awarded the successive World Cups of 2018 and 2022.

In 2011, several months after the lunch and then the World Cup award, French club Paris Saint-Germain were bought by Qatar Sports Investments from Colony Capital fund, whose European boss was Sébastien Bazin, a friend of Sarkozy.

Power game

Valcke, a former French television journalist, had a front row seat to all the wheeling and dealing in the role he had taken up in 2007 as FIFA secretary-general. His personal sky fell in after claims in autumn 2015 that he had been involved in an illicit World Cup tickets sale deal.

Further issues later came to light which led to his 12-year ban by the FIFA ethics committee.

This was not the end of his problems.

In October 2020 Valcke was handed a suspended 120-day suspended jail sentence by a Swiss court relating to the forging of documentation concerning World Cup broadcasting deals in Italy and Greece. He was also ordered to pay FIFA €1.75 million in restitution.

Valcke has always denied guilt and has appealed.

#############