Police raid villa in PSG chief inquiry

A £6 million Sardinian villa which police suspect was used by Paris StGermain’s Qatari president to bribe Sepp Blatter’s disgraced right-hand man at Fifa was raided yesterday as part of criminal investigations into the duo.

The Villa Bianca was put at the disposal of Jerome Valcke by Nasser Al-khelaifi as a “means of corruption”, according to Italian police, who conducted the search as part of a fraud inquiry into the man who masterminded Neymar’s world-record move from Barcelona.

Police also said documents and computer equipment were seized and several people had been questioned in connection with the property in an operation carried out on the request of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.

The OAG’S ever-expanding inquiry into football corruption also saw Fifa announce its ethics committee would launch a preliminary investigation into Al-khelaifi.

The 43-year-old was in danger of being provisionally suspended over suspicions he bribed the world gov- erning body’s former secretary general Valcke in his capacity as chief executive of bein Sports – the Paris offices of which were raided on Thursday – in order to secure World Cup broadcast rights.

“We can confirm that the investigatory chamber of the independent ethics committee will initiate a preliminary investigation into the matter,” Fifa said in a statement yesterday of a process similar to that which led to a 90-day suspension for its own president, Blatter, two years ago after proceedings were opened against him.

Al-khelaifi last year joined Uefa’s professional football strategy council. That was as a representative of the European Club Association, the executive board of which he was also appointed to in 2016.

Neither Uefa nor the ECA had any plans yesterday to suspend him from those roles.

PSG and bein did not respond to requests for comment on latest developments. Valcke, questioned by Swiss prosecutors the same day, broke his silence to deny the claims against him, telling L’equipe: “I have never received anything in exchange for anything.”