Interim FIFA general secretary Markus Kattner has been fired for receiving lots and lots of money in secret bonuses.
For the previous 13 years, Kattner had served as FIFA's finance director, so he was in a perfect position to give himself a little extra million or several under the table.
FIFA's announcement was, um, succinct:
FIFA’s Deputy Secretary General Markus Kattner has been dismissed from his position effective immediately. FIFA’s internal investigation uncovered breaches of his fiduciary responsibilities in connection with his employment contract.
FIFA will not comment further on any of the details, but will continue its cooperation with the relevant authorities.
The Associated Press provided a little more detail, via the Daily Mail:
The 45-year-old German official was due payments worth millions of dollars over a six-year period from 2008-14 from additions to his contract, a person familiar with the FIFA investigation said Monday.
The extra payments were known to then-President Blatter and then-secretary general Jerome Valcke, Kattner's immediate boss in that period.
"We don't yet understand why these payments were made," the person said on condition of anonymity as details of the investigation are confidential. "These contract provisions were not known widely and not to the appropriate officers at FIFA."
It is unclear if the contracted payments which came to light last week could form part of a wider investigation of criminal mismanagement at FIFA conducted by Swiss federal prosecutors, who opened proceedings against Blatter last September.
"We are not in a position to determine the legality of the contracts," the person said, adding that "the appropriate authorities are aware of the issue."
Singapore's Fatma Samoura, a United Nations Official, is due to take over the job of secretary general on a permanent basis next month. Kattner's predecessor, Jerome Valcke, was fired when he became mixed up in the corruption scandal that also saw former FIFA president Sepp Blatter lose his job.
Fortunately for FIFA, there is very little outrage surrounding this incident because this is how we expect FIFA executives to behave anyway.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
