Former FIFA president Blatter handed new ban over bonuses

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been handed a further six years and eight months ban from the game and fined a million Swiss francs ($1.07 million) by the body’s Ethics Committee after a probe into massive bonus payments.

Blatter’s current ban from the game was due to expire in October but the latest ban, for ethics code violations, will take effect from that point.

The latest investigation looked into World Cup bonus payments made to Blatter and a number of former top FIFA officials including former general secretary Jerome Valcke, former vice-president Julio Grondona and ex-finance director Markus Kattner.

The ethics committee said in a statement that Blatter had breached the ethics code “by accepting and receiving extraordinary bonuses in the amount of CHF 23 million, signed, approved or implemented by Messrs Grondona, Valcke and Kattner, and by concomitantly approving/offering extraordinary bonuses in the total of approximately CHF 46 million for Messrs Valcke, Grondona and Kattner”.

The payments related primarily to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The trio have denied any wrongdoing.

Reuters