International Investigation

'Thank you Nasser for your gift': when FIFA secretary general found luxury watch in his Qatar hotel room

Shortly after a committee of world football governing body FIFA in February 2015 controversially recommended that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could be played in winter, the then FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke secretly met with Qatari businessman Nasser al-Khelaifi, president of French football club PSG and chairman of beIN Sports, who was thanked by Valcke hours later for a gift of a watch worth 40,000 euros, according to phone text messages revealed here by Mediapart. Al-Khelaifi denies he was behind the gift. Swiss prosecutors, meanwhile, have dropped their probe of the two men over suspected bribery, which included Valcke’s free use of a luxurious villa bought by al-Khelaifi in Sardinia. Yann Philippin reports.

Reading articles is for subscribers only. Login

Between 2013 and 2015, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) football club boss and head of beIN Media Group, Nasser al-Khelaifi, showed great generosity towards Jérôme Valcke, then secretary general of global football governing body FIFA, as further detailed in this investigation by Mediapart and its media partners in the journalistic consortium European Investigative Collaborations (EIC).

1€ for 15 days

Can be canceled online at any time

I subscribe

Only our readers can buy us

Support a 100% independent newspaper: without subsidies, without advertising, without shareholders

Get your information from a trusted source

Get exclusive access to revelations from an investigative journal

Already subscribed ?

Forgot password ?

See Journal’s homepage