ROME: Italian police said on Friday they seized a luxury villa in Sardinia allegedly used by Paris St Germain president Nasser al-Khelaifi to bribe former FIFA official Jerome Valcke.

On Thursday, Swiss federal prosecutors said they oversaw raids in four countries for criminal proceedings against Al-Khelaifi and Valcke linked to awarding television rights for the next four World Cups.

Al-Khelaifi is also CEO of Qatar-owned BeIN Media Group, which has World Cup rights across the Middle East through 2030, including the 2022 tournament in Qatar.

Italy’s financial police said they had searched and seized the luxury “Villa Bianca” in Porto Cervo valued at seven million euros ($8.3 million), owned by an international real estate agency, in a raid conducted in the presence of a “representative of the Swiss government”.

Several people “linked to various titles to the company that owns the villa” have been questioned, police added.

The property was allegedly made available to Valcke, FIFA’s CEO-like secretary general from 2007 until being fired in January 2016 amid separate corruption claims.

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) said on Thursday it suspected Valcke — who was Sepp Blatter’s right-hand man at FIFA — accepted “undue advantages” from Al-Khelaifi, a charge denied by Valcke.

“I just want to say that it’s not true. I have never done that. I have never received anything in exchange for anything,” Valcke told French sports daily L’Equipe on Friday.

“I refute the accusations against me or Nasser. I have received nothing from Nasser, I can assure you. There was never any exchange between Nasser and I. Never.”

Valcke is serving a 10-year ban from football after he was found guilty by FIFA's former ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert of misconduct over the sale of World Cup tickets, abuse of travel expenses, attempting to sell TV rights below their market value and destruction of evidence.

After being sacked from his post in January 2016, he was initially banned for 12 years, which was reduced to 10 by FIFAs own appeal committee last June. He has denied wrongdoing and is now appealing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Prosecutors indicated that Khelaifi was under suspicion only for actions taken as the head of BeIN media group.

The Qatar broadcaster issued a statement denying any wrongdoing while confirming French authorities had raided the company’s Paris offices following a Swiss request.

PSG, which was bought by Qatar Sports Investments in 2011, grabbed headlines in August for its world record signing of Brazilian superstar Neymar.

Though PSG are not implicated in the case, FIFA’s ethics committee can impose an interim ban on the club president working in football while it investigates. On Friday, world football’s governing body FIFA said they were opening an investigation into the issues raised by the Swiss probe.

“We can confirm that the Investigatory Chamber of the independent Ethics Committee will initiate a preliminary investigation into the matter,” a FIFA spokesman said.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2017