(ATR) FIFA peeled back another layer of secrecy on Thursday as football’s governing body revealed for the first time how much money it was paying disgraced former president Sepp Blatter.
Blatter, who was suspended with pay in October 2015 and later banned for unethical conduct, made $3.76 million last year. He did not earn a performance bonus but did pocket almost $450,000 for reaching 40 years of service at FIFA.
Blatter’s right-hand man, secretary general Jerome Valcke, got $2.2 million in 2015. He was relieved of his duties in September and was fired in January for multiple counts of breaching FIFA’s ethics code. He was banned from football for 12 years in February.
Every executive committee member was paid $300,000 with Issa Hayatou of Cameroon earning an additional $500,000 as the chair of the finance committee.
The scandals have hit FIFA hard when it comes to the organization’s bottom line. The governing body reported a loss of $122 million for 2015, the first time since 2002 that FIFA has lost money.
Despite a lack of new sponsorship money, FIFA still posted a total income of $1.152 billion last year. But that was more than offset by expenses of $1.274 billion. FIFA also spent $61.5 million on what was called "legal matters," almost twice as much as in 2014.
FIFA's reserves fund fell by $183 million to $1.34 billion.
FIFA agreed to start revealing executives’ pay as part of reforms passed at its Extraordinary Congress last month.
Blatter appeals his ban to Court of Arbitration for Sport
Blatter has made good on his plans to appeal his ban from football.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed on Thursday that Blatter "seeks the annulment of the decision taken by the FIFA Appeal Committee in which he was suspended from all football-related activities at national and international level for six years."
FIFA banned Blatter and former UEFA president Michel Platini following a probe into the "disloyal" payment the disgraced former FIFA chief made to Platini for advisory work carried out between 1998 and 2002.
Both Blatter and Platini saw their eight-year bans from world football reduced to just six years each by the FIFA appeals committee in February. Platini appealed his ban to CAS earlier this month.
FIFA welcomes Brussels Court of Appeal ruling on third-party ownership
Football’s governing body is celebrating a victory in the courts in its battle against third-party ownership of players’ economic rights (TPO).
FIFA announced on Thursday that the Brussels Court of Appeal had dismissed an appeal by Doyen Sports Investments, the Belgian second-division club Seraing United and the Spanish Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP) against FIFA, UEFA, the Belgian FA and FIFPro seeking a temporary injunction to suspend the implementation of FIFA’s worldwide ban on TPO.
The Brussels Court upheld an earlier ruling in finding that the ban did not contravene European Union competition law.
In a statement, FIFA said the ban on TPO "is indispensable for preserving the independence of clubs and players and for ensuring the integrity of matches and competitions."
Written by Gerard Farek
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