Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has been put on leave and released from his duties until further notice. A Fifa statement said it had \u201cbeen made aware of a series of allegations involving the secretary general\u201d.<\/p>\n
Newspaper allegations on Thursday implicated Valcke, 54, in a scheme to sell World Cup tickets for above face value. The Frenchman, who has held his role at Fifa since 2007, said he denied the \u201cfabricated, outrageous\u201d allegations.<\/p>\n
Football\u2019s world governing body Fifa has been engulfed by claims of widespread corruption since May, when Swiss police raided a hotel in Zurich and arrested seven of its top executives.<\/p>\n
United States officials have since indicted those seven and two other Fifa officials on bribery and racketeering charges.<\/p>\n
President Sepp Blatter announced that he would stand down just days after winning re-election in June. Valcke, who last month was considering standing to be the new president, is Blatter\u2019s number two at the organisation but now faces a formal investigation by the Fifa ethics committee.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Thursday Eugenio Figueredo, one of the seven officials arrested in May, had his extradition to the United States approved. As well as the US inquiry, a Swiss investigation is looking into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.<\/p>\n
Fifa has recently set up a taskforce to tackle corruption which aims to \u201crestore the integrity and reputation\u201d of the organisation.<\/p>\n
A man already under scrutiny Valcke has also faced scrutiny in recent months over his role in an alleged $10m (\u00a36.5m) bribe \u2013 an allegation he denies.<\/p>\n
United States prosecutors say the money was paid by South Africa to former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner in return for his vote and backing during their successful bid to host the 2010 World Cup.<\/p>\n
The money is said to have been transferred to Warner from a Fifa bank account after being reappropriated from South Africa\u2019s World Cup local organising committee budget.<\/p>\n
The New York Times and other US media outlets, citing US law enforcement sources, have claimed Valcke was the \u201chigh-ranking Fifa official\u201d who signed off the payment.<\/p>\n
Who is Jerome Valcke? The Fifa secretary general has been outgoing president Sepp Blatter\u2019s right-hand man since 2007. He started his career in 1984 as a sports journalist for Canal+, becoming a director in 1991.<\/p>\n
He joined Fifa in 2003 as a director of marketing and TV.<\/p>\n
In 2006, Valcke was released by Fifa after a New York court said he lied in a sponsorship row between Mastercard and Visa. A year later, Valcke was hired by Blatter as the first non-Swiss secretary general. In 2011, Valcke denied Jack Warner\u2019s claim in an e-mail that Mohamed Bin Hammam \u201cbought\u201d the 2022 World Cup finals for Qatar.<\/p>\n
In June, Valcke also denied making a \u00a36m payment connected with South Africa\u2019s bid to host the 2010 World Cup.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has been put on leave and released from his duties until further notice. A Fifa statement said it had \u201cbeen made aware of a series of allegations involving the secretary general\u201d. Newspaper allegations on Thursday implicated Valcke, 54, in a scheme to sell World Cup tickets for above face value. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":152793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[3],"yoast_head":"\n