FIFA’s ethics committee has banned the federation’s former general secretary, Jerome Valcke, for 12 years over his involvement in a World Cup tickets scandal and TV rights sales.
The Frenchman was dismissed last month, but has now been banned from all football-related activity and fined 100,000 Swiss francs (almost £71,000).
A statement read: “Amongst other things, the adjudicatory chamber found that a sports marketing firm had gained an undue advantage from the selling of FIFA World Cup tickets.
“In this respect, not only did Mr Valcke do nothing to stop these activities, he even encouraged the persons responsible to do so. Furthermore, Mr Valcke repeatedly encouraged them to breach an agreement concluded between FIFA and the sports marketing firm.
“Moreover, by travelling at FIFA’s expense purely for sightseeing reasons as well as repeatedly choosing private flights for his trips over commercial flights without any business rationale for doing so, Mr Valcke gained an advantage for himself and relatives.
“In doing so, Mr Valcke acted against FIFA’s best interests and caused considerable financial damage to FIFA.
“Concerning the issue of TV and media rights for the Caribbean, it was found that Mr Valcke attempted to grant the TV and media rights for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups to a third party for a fee far below their actual market value and had taken concrete preparatory action in this regard.”
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