Television rights, Fifa's main source of litigation income, are the key to its financial success.
The "Fifagate" story, which began with the arrest of seven world soccer leaders in Zurich on May 27, 2015, focuses on the "racketeering", carried out by South American officials to obtain TV rights for continental football competitions.
The United States has been investigating the case and the result of the investigation was that Paraguayan Juan Angel Napout was sentenced to nine years imprisonment and Brazilian Jose Maria Marin was sentenced to four years. Jeffrey Webb, another Cayman Island executive, pleaded guilty to the charges and agreed that he would pay $6.7 Million.
Qatari Nasser al-Khelaifi (president of beIN Media, Paris SG) and Jerome Valcke (ex-secretary general of the International Federation), are being accused of having signed a pact without Fifa and falling under "unfair managing" in a case relating the Worlds-2026/30.
In October 2020, Swiss justice acquitted Nasser Al Khalaifi. Valcke was sentenced to a light sentence for another case that wasn't related to the Qatari leader. The prosecution appealed, and demanded 28 months imprisonment against Nasser al-Khelaifi, and 35 against Jerome Valcke in the case that was held in March in Switzerland.
The fall of these two former leaders, which was banned from world football in 2015, conceals a double dispute. First, the main case, which targets a payment of 2,000,000 Swiss Francs (1.8 Million euros) from Fifa and Michel Platini in 2011, validated by the then-president Sepp Blatter, without a written contract.
Platini (66), and Blatter (85) are being tried in Switzerland for fraud, unfair management, breach of trust and false titles. The men claim that it is a residual of their salary as advisers from the period 1999-2002.
Simple fraud can result in five years imprisonment or a monetary fine under Swiss law.
Michel Platini, former UEFA boss, sees in this an "plot" to oust him as Fifa president. He was offered the position by Gianni Infantino.
He launched another procedure at the end of 2018 to file a complaint for "slanderous denial" and "criminal association". In November 2021, the triple Ballon d'Or filed a Paris complaint against Infantino and Marco Villiger for "active influence peddling".
Infantino was elected in 2016 and promised to "restore Fifa's Image". Since July 2020, Infantino has been subject to criminal proceedings for "incitement of abuse of authority", violation of official secrecy and obstruction of criminal proceedings.
He is accused by Swiss justice of having three secret meetings with Michael Lauber (then head of the Public Ministry of the Confederation) in 2016 and 2017, which led to suspicions of collusion between the prosecution, Fifa, and civil parties in most of the proceedings.
Italian-Swiss (51), assures that his side of the story is to show the prosecution "that Fifa was a thousand kilometers away from the old one".
After seven months of paralysis, the investigations were resumed on December 15. This was after the recusal of Stefan Keller, a Swiss prosecutor who was investigating the case in May 2021. He had also found "clues" to "unfair management" in a private plane flight that Mr. Infantino performed in 2017, and paid for and paid by Fifa.
Fifa's most embarrassing investigation, due to the shadow it casts on its queen competition, is to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup organization.
An internal FIFA investigation documented suspicions of vote-buying during the December 2, 2010, vote. A complaint was filed at the end 2014 to the Swiss justice system. The Swiss justice system has been investigating money laundering and unfair management since May 2015.
French justice is also investigating "active and passive" corruption at a lunch that Nicolas Sarkozy (then President of the Republic), two senior Qatari leaders, and Michel Platini, then boss of UEFA, took place on November 23, 2010.
While Qatar is the main focus of attention, Russia's 2018 World Cup and South Africa's 2010 World Cup are also suspect of corruption. Due to the prescription, Switzerland was forced to end a trial on April 2020 regarding the award of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
