Blatter, Valcke and Kattner awarded themselves £55m, say Fifa lawyers

The sheer scale of corruption at the top of Fifa was revealed on Friday when lawyers said that three high-ranking former officials - Sepp Blatter, Jerome Valcke and Markus Kattner - had awarded themselves pay rises and World Cup bonuses totalling 79m Swiss francs (£55m).

The lawyers acting for Fifa said the contracted payments were made during the officials’ last five years in office and appeared to violate Swiss law. Evidence will now be given to the US justice department and to Swiss federal prosecutors who are investigating the corruption scandal engulfing the world’s football body.

“The evidence appears to reveal a coordinated effort by three former top officials of Fifa to enrich themselves through annual salary increases, World Cup bonuses and other incentives totalling more than 79m Swiss francs in just the last five years,” said Bill Burck of Quinn Emanuel, the US law firm retained by Fifa during its corruption crisis.

Fifa revealed details of the contracts of its former president Blatter, former secretary general Valcke and former finance director Kattner one day after police raided Fifa to seize evidence for the Swiss investigation. It is understood that Blatter got £23.3m, Valcke £22.9m and Kattner £9.5m.

The raid included searches in the office of Kattner, Fifa’s deputy secretary general, who was fired last week.

Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber opened criminal proceedings against Blatter last September, and against Valcke in March.

Both are suspected of criminal mismanagement of Fifa money. Blatter and Valcke deny wrongdoing but were banned for six and 12 years, respectively, by Fifa’s ethics committee.

No additional criminal proceedings have been opened against Kattner.

“Additionally, Fifa will refer the matter of these contracts and payments to the Ethics Committee for its review,” Fifa said in a statement.

In a statement, Fifa gave details for the first time of the “tens of millions of dollars” paid to the three individuals. They said documents seized in the raid “raised serious questions about the way a series of problematic contract amendments .. were approved”.

It said: “These amendments resulted in massive payouts - amounting to tens of millions of dollars – to the former FIFA officials in the form of salaries and bonuses between the years 2011 and 2015.”

Put together, the new documents and evidence appeared to reveal “a coordinated effort” by the top officials to enrich themselves, Fifa said. Several of the amendments to contracts which came into effect on the same day were described as “very ominous”.

They included new eight and half year contract extensions given to both Valcke and Kattner, shortly before Fifa’s May 2011 presidential election. At the time it was unclear if Blatter would be reelected or his rival Mohammed Bin Hamman would get the job.

Their contracts were extended until 2019, with “big increases in base salaries and bonuses” and guaranteed severance payments. They amounted to 17.5m Swiss francs (£12.2m) and 9.8 million Swiss Francs (£6.8m) to Valcke and Kattner respectively in the case that their contracts were terminated, likely if Blatter lost.

Fifa also agreed to pay all their legal fees. These arrangements probably violated Swiss law, Fifa said.

Additionally, the three officials pocketed 23m Swiss francs as “special bonuses” awarded four months after the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa. The bonuses were given even though they were not mentioned in any contract.

Valcke and Kattner got a further 14m Swiss francs in bonuses for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. They got another payment of 15.5m Swiss francs in June 2014, for the controversial 2018 World Cup in Russia.