Ex-Fifa bosses shared $80m over five years

Former Fifa officials Sepp Blatter, Jerome Valcke, and Markus Kattner awarded themselves pay rises and World Cup bonuses totalling $80m over five years, according to lawyers for the football organisation.

Fifa said the contracted payments appear to break Swiss law, and evidence will be given to American and Swiss federal prosecutors, who are investigating corruption implicating the world football body.

Fifa revealed details of the contracts of former president Mr Blatter, fired former secretary general Mr Valcke, and fired finance director Mr Kattner one day after Swiss police raided Fifa to seize evidence. The raid included searches in the office of Mr Kattner, who was fired last week.

Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber opened criminal proceedings against Mr Blatter last September, and against Mr Valcke in March. Both are suspected of criminal mismanagement of Fifa money.

“The evidence appears to reveal a co-ordinated effort by three former top officials of Fifa to enrich themselves through annual salary increases, World Cup bonuses and other incentives totalling more than 79m Swiss francs [€71m] — in just the last five years,” said Bill Burck of Quinn Emanuel, the US law firm retained by Fifa during its corruption crisis.

Mr Blatter and Mr Valcke deny wrongdoing, but were banned for six and 12 years respectively by Fifa’s ethics committee. No additional criminal proceedings have been opened against Mr Kattner.

“Additionally, Fifa will refer the matter of these contracts and payments to the ethics committee for its review,” said Fifa in a statement.

Three weeks after new Fifa president Gianni Infantino claimed that “the crisis is over”, the turmoil rocking football’s world governing body continues.

Mr Blatter got a 12m Swiss francs (€10.82m) bonus after the successful 2014 World Cup in Brazil and would have been due another 12m Swiss francs for completing his 2015-19 presidential term.

The secretly agreed bonuses were significantly more than Mr Blatter’s base salary — 3m Swiss francs (€2.7m) in 2015 — which was published by Fifa in March.

Mr Valcke got a $2m (€1.76m) base salary in 2015, before being fired, but got a $10m dollar (€8.8m) World Cup bonus for 2014 and was due $11m (€9.68m) from the 2018 tournament in Russia.

“Documents and electronic data were seized and will now be examined to determine their relevance to the ongoing proceedings,” said the Swiss federal prosecution office.

Any ethics investigation could affect two senior officials at the heart of Fifa’s financial operation: Finance committee chairman Issa Hayatou, the interim Fifa president while Mr Blatter was suspended, and former audit panel chairman Domenico Scala.

Both approved at least one of the contracts revealed yesterday,