Soccer

Former Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke appeals 10-year ban

Frenchman is looking to Cas to overturn ban handed down last June

Former Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have his 10-year ban from football overturned. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Tue Feb 28 2017 - 14:55

Former Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) to have his 10-year ban from football overturned.

The 56-year-old was banned from taking part in any football-related activity for a decade for a number of ethics violations, such as misuse of expenses.

But the Frenchman, who played a major role in the latter years of Sepp Blatter’s tenure as Fifa president, is now looking to the Cas to overturn the ban.

A statement released by CAS read: “Jerome Valcke, former secretary general of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has filed an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision issued by the Fifa appeal committee dated 24 June 2016 (with reasons notified on 3 February 2017), in which he was banned from taking part in any football-related activity for a period of 10 years.

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“Jerome Valcke seeks to have the challenged decision set aside in order for the sanction imposed on him to be lifted definitively. A CAS arbitration procedure is in progress.”

Fifa announced last January that Valcke had been sacked from his role – the second time he had been dismissed by the world governing body.

He had been suspended since September 2015 after ethics charges were brought against him over World Cup ticket sales, along with allegations over expenses including the use of a privately-hired Fifa jet for personal travel.

He was also sacked as a marketing director of Fifa in 2006 after a judge said he had lied repeatedly during Fifa’s botched sponsorship negotiations with rival credit-card companies Mastercard and Visa.

Less than eight months later, however, he was back in Fifa as second in command to president Blatter, who himself faced Fifa Ethics sanctions in the past year.

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