Ex-FIFA boss loses appeal to upturn 10-year ban
French former FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke looks on outside the Court of Arbitration for Sport prior to his appeal over his 10-year ban from football on October 11, 2017 in Lausanne. / AFP PHOTO / Fabrice COFFRINI
Former Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has lost his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against his 10-year ban from football.
Valcke, 57, was suspended in 2015 when Fifa ruled he had breached the body’s ethics code on a series of occasions.
The Frenchman was originally given a 12-year ban and a 100,000 Swiss franc fine (£76,600), before the ban was later reduced by two years.
Cas said Fifa’s punishment was “wholly proportionate”.
In backing the 10-year ban and fine, Cas added it had “concluded that the offences found to have been committed by Jerome Valcke were cumulatively of a serious degree of gravity”.
Valcke, the former right-hand man of ex-Fifa president Sepp Blatter, has always maintained he did “absolutely nothing wrong”.
As well as being implicated in a scheme related to the resale of World Cup tickets, Fifa’s ethics committee said Valcke had “acted against Fifa’s best interests and caused considerable financial damage” by taking private flights for sightseeing trips with his family at the organisation’s expense.
It was also critical of his involvement in the sale of television rights for below market value and said he “deliberately tried to obstruct the ongoing proceedings against him by attempting to delete or deleting several files and folders relevant to the investigation”.
Blatter was 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.
His appeal to Cas was rejected in December 2016.
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