FIFA Paid £2.6m To Sepp Blatter Despite Ban From Football

Sepp Blatter was provisionally banned from football last September after the Swiss attorney general opened a criminal investigation into a £1.3m payment he authorised to Michel Platini.

He continued to be paid however, because the case was subject to FIFA's independent disciplinary process.

The former FIFA President Sepp Blatter was paid £2.6m in 2015 despite being banned from football for part of the year over his role in the corruption scandal that has engulfed the organisation.

FIFA published the president's salary for the first time in its annual report for 2015, which also revealed it made a £107m loss for the year, in large part because of the legal cost of responding to criminal inquiries from the US and Swiss authorities.

It is the first time FIFA has made a loss since 2002, and is attributed to legal fees estimated at £7m a month, and the cost of staging extraordinary meetings to tackle the crisis that has seen numerous officials indicted in the US on corruption charges.

The cost of legal matters is listed in the accounts as $62m (£43m), and a loss of sponsorship revenue will also have contributed to the shortfall in 2015.

The report also reveals that former secretary general Jerome Valcke, himself banned for nine years, was paid £1.52m for the year.

His pay was revealed as the Swiss attorney general announced he had opened criminal proceedings into the former secretary general "on suspicion of various acts of criminal mismanagement … and other offences".

The total pay of FIFA's senior executive for 2015 was $27.9m (£19.26m).

Both Blatter and Valcke will continue to receive a pension.

FIFA implied it was powerless to stop them receiving the payments under Swiss law.