Leaked documents have been added to Qatar's corruption scandals, as Nasser al-Khelaifi, the president of Paris Saint-Germain, appears to have sought payments for an agent which could have violated transfer regulations, and to have given inaccurate information to a French judge, according to The Guardian.
Khelaifi appears to have signed a letter to the chief of staff to the future emir of Qatar asking for a €2m payment to be made to Javier Pastore’s agent – when the Argentinian midfielder was transferred from the Italian club Palermo to PSG in a deal worth €40m plus bonuses in 2011. Another $200,000 in “expenses” was also requested for a private Qatari company, Oryx QSI, run by his brother.
It is forbidden for a club president to personally pay an agent. According to article seven of Fifa’s regulations for intermediaries “any payment for the services of an intermediary shall be made exclusively by the client of the intermediary to the intermediary”.
The French Football Federation (FFF) confirmed to the Guardian and the French website Mediapart that such a payment would violate its regulations. The French Professional Football League (LFP) said it would also breach L. 222-17 of the Sports Code, which stipulates that only players and clubs are allowed to pay an agent. “A club president therefore can not, personally, directly fulfil the payment of commission to an agent,” it added in a statement.
The confidential letter, written in Arabic, also suggests that Khelaifi gave inaccurate information to Renaud Van Ruymbeke, a French judge who is an investigative magistrate, when he told him he did not have authority to sign. He told the judge: “I did not have the signature – I could not order any expense” for Oryx QSI in 2011. However, the letter was written on Oryx QSI notepaper and signed by Nasser.
The letter is included as an PDF sent by email in a large tranche of documents seen by the Guardian and Mediapart. Information in the letter has been supplemented by documents from Football Leaks, obtained by the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
It appears to describe an operation ordered by the current emir of Qatar, which aims to pay – through Khelaifi and the company Oryx QSI – an undisclosed commission to an agent.
The letter, apparently from Khelaifi, is addressed to “His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chief of Staff of His Highness the Crown Prince”, and includes the subject line: “Commission of the agent in charge of the player Javier Pastore and expenses of the company Oryx QSI.”
In the letter Khelaifi writes that his letter is “based on verbal instructions given by His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, heir to the throne, may God protect and conserve him, regarding the payment of the commission due to the agent in charge of the player Javier Pastore amounting to 2 million euros (2,000,000) in exchange for his transfer from the Italian club of Palermo to Paris Saint Germain, in addition to the expenses of Oryx QSI, amounting to US $200,000 (two hundred thousand US dollars).”
Details of where to make the payments are then given, before Khelaifi adds: “We thank you for your help and cooperation with us. Please accept, Your Excellency, the expression of my respect.”
