Fifa trial: Qataris were in talks for company caught up in alleged bribery scheme
- PSG chairman Nasser al-Khelaifi backed out of deal after indictments
- Details come up during trial of former football officials in New York
Nasser al-Khelaifi, the chairman of a powerful Qatari sports investment company that owns Paris Saint-Germain, was in secretive negotiations to take over a company accused of paying football officials millions of dollars in bribes, a federal court in New York heard on Tuesday.
The claim was made by Santiago Peña, a former financial executive at the Argentinian marketing company Full Play, as part of testimony in the trial of three former South American football officials accused on multiple bribery counts. Peña is a star US government witness in the sprawling investigation into corruption at Fifa, the sport’s governing body. He has laid out detailed evidence that Full Play paid multimillion-dollar bribes to a group of football officials in exchange for the rights to regional competitions and World Cup qualifiers.
