Al Khelaifi and PSG in the clear – again
Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City are continually being linked: megarich, big-spending, trophy-grabbing toys of soft-power-pursuing Gulf dynasties. But right now, PSG appear to be negotiating their way through a testing PR minefield somewhat more successfully than City.
Firstly, before coronavirus cut in, PSG were heading serenely towards a successful defence of their Ligue 1 title; City, by contrast, were 25 points adrift of Liverpool in the Premier League. Secondly, PSG had escaped the clutches of UEFA’s financial fairplay police, while City copped for a twoseason ban from Europe. And how City’s appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport will play out in these insecure times, is anyone’s guess of course.
One happy positive for PSG was the decision of the Swiss courts to quash a bribery charge levelled against their president, Nasser Al Khelaifi, for bribery over World Cup TV rights in his role as head of Qatar’s BeIN Media.
The decision removed nagging questions about Al Khelaifi’s right to sit on the UEFA executive committee as one of two delegates from the European Club Association, along with chair Andrea Agnelli.
The case concerned FIFA’s award to BeIN Media of TV rights to the 2026 and 2030 World Cups for the Middle East and North Africa region – which is a region that has seen BeIN programming undermined by the Saudi-based BeoutQ pirates.
A key plank in the prosecution case was that Al Khelaifi had bribed Jerome Valcke, then FIFA secretary-general, with the rent-free provision of a luxury villa in Sardinia. However, a preliminary court hearing decided no connection existed between the rights award and the property deal.
FIFA had withdrawn its own complaint in January after reaching “an amicable agreement” in which Al Khelaifi agreed to pay FIFA’s legal costs.
Valcke, who continues to challenge his 12-year FIFA ban in the courts, remains accused of corruption over a €1.25million payment from an unidentified businessman. But Al Khelaifi, as far as football is concerned, is now free as a bird.