Nasser al-Khelaïfi and Jérôme Valcke finally cleared in ‘FIFAgate’ TV rights case | OneFootball

The Federal Court in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Friday cleared PSG and beIN Media Group president Nasser al-Khelaïfi and co-defendant Jérôme Valcke in the ‘FIFAgate’ TV rights case. Valcke received an 11-month suspended sentence in a separate case.

According to L'Équipe, the verdict comes more than eight years after the affair began. Al-Khelaïfi and the former FIFA secretary general, in post from 2007 to 2015, had been accused of “instigation to aggravated dishonest management” and “aggravated dishonest management”.

For al-Khelaïfi, it is a third acquittal in the case linked to TV rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups. The MPC had accused Valcke of selling support to beIN Sports in return for al-Khelaïfi making the Villa Bianca in Sardinia available in 2014 and 2015.

His Swiss lawyers hailed a full rehabilitation and said the ruling ends more than eight years of proceedings and unfounded allegations. They called it a trophy hunt and said that hunt is now over.

In the other case, for which he was convicted of “passive corruption” and “forgery in documents”, Valcke was accused of receiving 1.25 million euros from Dinos Deris to favour media rights in Greece and Italy for several World Cups. He was accused of booking the bribes as “loans” in his accounts.

Source: L'Équipe