Jérôme Valcke

• 1. Introduction

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  Jérôme Valcke stood at the center of world football for nearly a decade. As Secretary General of FIFA, he sat just below the most powerful office in the sport's governing body, managing billions in revenue and overseeing multiple World Cup cycles. Then, in the span of a few months in 2015, it all came apart.

  His dismissal on the 13th of January 2016 was not simply a firing. It was the culmination of a cascade of ethics investigations, a provisional ban, and formal proceedings that stretched across continents, from Zurich to Washington to Sardinia. The man who had once called his appointment to the role a dream ended up banned from all football until 2031.

  How did a Canal+ journalist from France rise to become the second most powerful figure at FIFA? And how did the same qualities that brought him back from a first scandal in 2006 ultimately fail to save him from a much larger reckoning?

• 2. From Canal+ to Zurich

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  Between 1991 and 1997, Valcke served as deputy chief of sport at Canal+, the French television company where he built his career as a journalist. In 1997, he moved up to become chief executive officer at Sport+, a related channel.

  In the summer of 2003, he made the jump from French broadcasting into international football administration, joining FIFA in Zurich as Director of Marketing and TV. The organization he entered was, by FIFA President Sepp Blatter's own later account, emerging from a financial crisis. Blatter would credit Valcke with helping to build an equity position of CHF 752 million by the time of his return in 2007.

  The marketing role put Valcke at the intersection of FIFA's commercial relationships with its most valuable sponsors, a position that would define both his early ambition and his first serious fall from grace.

• 3. The MasterCard Affair

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  On the 7th of December 2006, a New York court found that Valcke had lied in his role as FIFA's marketing director. He had negotiated sponsorship agreements with Visa while FIFA was still bound by a long-standing partnership agreement with MasterCard, violating MasterCard's right of first negotiation.

  The financial cost to FIFA was USD $60 million. Despite the ruling, Valcke publicly insisted he had done nothing wrong. "I feel I am clean," he said. "I don't have the feeling that we have been so dirty."

  Five days after the court's finding, on the 12th of December 2006, Blatter released Valcke along with three other FIFA employees. The official FIFA statement was unambiguous: "Fifa's negotiations breached its business principles. Fifa cannot possibly accept such conduct among its own employees." Blatter's own framing was slightly softer; he said Valcke had been released, not fired.

  Valcke was replaced temporarily by Eelco M. van der Noll as interim Director of Marketing. FIFA ultimately settled with both Visa and MasterCard on the 21st of June for US $90 million, a sum thirty million dollars higher than the original court penalty.

• 4. The Return and Rise

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  What happened next surprised observers of the football world. On the 27th of June 2007, fewer than seven months after his release, FIFA's Executive Committee installed Valcke as the organization's General Secretary, at Blatter's direct proposal.

  His predecessor, Urs Linsi, had stepped down on the 11th of June 2007. Markus Kattner, FIFA's chief of finance, served as interim general secretary between those two dates before Valcke formally took over. Valcke became the first person since 1956 to hold the FIFA Secretary General role without having been born in Switzerland.

  Blatter's rationale for bringing back a man so recently dismissed was pointed. "Strong people bring you back," the FIFA president said. Valcke, responding to the appointment in Zurich that same day, called it a dream. Behind that moment was a notable institutional fact: the same president who had released him had now handed him the second most senior position in the organization.

• 5. The 2022 Email and Warner

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  On the 30th of May 2011, FIFA Executive Committee member Jack Warner was suspended pending an ethics investigation. That same day, Warner leaked an email from Valcke that suggested Qatar had bought the rights to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

  Valcke issued a denial of any suggestion that a payoff had occurred, framing Qatar's conduct instead as the use of financial muscle to lobby for support. Qatari officials also denied the allegations.

  Four years later, the 2015 United States Department of Justice indictment brought a more specific accusation into the open. It described a high-ranking FIFA official who caused payments totalling US $10 million to be sent to bank accounts controlled by Warner, accounts held in the name of CONCACAF and the Caribbean Football Union. A letter from South African Football Association President Dr. Molefi Olphant, written to Valcke on the 4th of March 2008, had requested that the $10 million be diverted from the 2010 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee's future budget toward a Diaspora Legacy Programme Fund run by Warner. The indictment alleged the payments were tied to votes for South Africa over Morocco to host the 2010 World Cup.

• 6. The Fall in 2015

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  On the 17th of September 2015, FIFA's Emergency Committee placed Valcke on leave and released him from his duties after allegations that he had sold World Cup tickets above face value.

  Three weeks later, on the 8th of October 2015, the investigatory arm of the FIFA Ethics Committee suspended him from all football for 90 days. When that period expired, the ban was extended for another 45 days and the case moved to the adjudicatory arm. The formal charges included misuse of expenses and other violations of FIFA's rules and regulations. The investigation arm recommended a nine-year ban from all football, along with a fine of 100,000 Swiss francs.

  On the 12th of January 2016, the FIFA Ethics Committee imposed the ban that would ultimately extend to 2028, and confirmed the 100,000 Swiss franc fine. The following day, the 13th of January 2016, his employment at FIFA was terminated with immediate effect.

  Valcke appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on the 28th of February 2017. The CAS dismissed the appeal on the 27th of July 2018, upholding the original ruling in full.

• 7. Swiss Prosecution and Sardinia

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  The legal proceedings did not end with the FIFA ban. On the 14th of September 2020, the Swiss Federal Court began prosecuting both Valcke and Nasser Al-Khelaifi over events traced to a specific meeting on the 24th of October 2013.

  That meeting took place at the French headquarters of beIN. According to the charges, Al-Khelaifi allegedly promised to purchase a villa in Porto Cervo, Sardinia for 5 million euros, to be used by Valcke through a rental contract signed by a third party named Abdelkader Bessedik. The alleged exchange was the granting of World Cup screening rights for 2026 and 2030 to beIN Media.

  Separate accusations placed Valcke at the center of another arrangement: accepting $1.5 million in bribes from Greek businessman Dinos Deris, reportedly connected to a personal debt of $11 million. That debt stemmed from the purchase of two homes in Switzerland with a combined value of CHF 7 million and a 34-metre boat valued at more than CHF 2 million.

  On the 24th of March 2021, Valcke's original FIFA ban, which had been set to expire in October 2025, was extended by six years, pushing the end date to 2031.