Fifa has sacked its director of marketing and TV and three others for what the group called dishonest sponsorship negotiations.
Jerome Valcke, Tom Houseman, Robert Lampman and Stefan Schuster were fired following a ruling in a U.S. court that upheld MasterCard’s right sponsor the 2010 and 2014 World Cups because Fifa didn’t play fair when it awarded the rights to credit card rival Visa.
FIFA acknowledged its World Cup sponsorship negotiations with rival credit card firms Visa and MasterCard had “breached (FIFA’s) business principles”, adding that “FIFA cannot possibly accept such conduct among its own employees”
“The Fifa employees who had conducted negotiations with Visa and MasterCard were accused of repeated dishonesty during negotiations and of giving false information to the FIFA deciding bodies in question,” FIFA said in a statement.
The statement added FIFA were “considering lodging an appeal against the court’s judgment, while taking account of the interests of every party involved and seeking suitable solutions.”
Last Thursday, a federal court judge in New York blamed Fifa for misleading MasterCard in their negotiations.
Visa said it negotiated its global sponsorship agreement in good faith after Fifa assured it the deal was did not conflict with any of MasterCard’s rights.
