Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter was paid a £2.6M ($3.76M) package last year, the first for which FIFA has disclosed the salary paid to its president and secretary general, according to David Conn of the London GUARDIAN. FIFA published the figure in its accounts for '15, which showed that "a year of unprecedented corruption scandals" had led to it losing $122M. Blatter’s package "covers the final year of his 17" as the FIFA president. The pay for Blatter, former Secretary General Jérôme Valcke, FIFA's 24-person exec committee and the organization’s other directors amounted to $27.9M in the '15 financial year. The accounts showed that FIFA's loss of $122M was "mostly caused by costs having increased" by $240M from '11, the "comparable period in the previous World Cup cycle." FIFA said that an increased budget for global football development had "partly caused the increase in costs," but said it was also attributable to “unforeseen costs” such as legal fees, in a year the organization "was shaken by a series of arrests and indictments of previously high-ranking officials" whom FIFA is now suing for compensation (GUARDIAN, 3/17). REUTERS' Brian Homewood reported in particular, FIFA's legal fees rose from $31.29M in '14 to $61.49M while its reserves dropped from $1.52B to $1.34B. FIFA said in a statement, "The unprecedented events that occurred in 2015 have impacted upon FIFA's financial results, however the organisation's healthy reserves have allowed it to weather the storm." FIFA said that Valcke, banned for 12 years, was paid 2.12M Swiss francs ($2.19M) last year. FIFA said that it calculated Blatter and Valcke's payments on the advice of an "independent, external company that specialises in HR and compensation issues." Despite the troubles, FIFA said it had "revised its projected revenue" for the '15-18 cycle upward from $5B to $5.65B, with projected investments amounting to $5.55B (REUTERS, 3/17). The AP's Graham Dunbar reported FIFA agreed to start publishing exec pay in modernizing reforms approved last month, as a "response to American and Swiss federal investigations of corruption" implicating dozens of football officials, including Blatter. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, "With the recently approved reforms, I believe that we have turned a corner and that FIFA is poised to emerge stronger than ever." FIFA has acknowledged that potential commercial partners "were put off by fallout from the scandals." Top-tier sponsors Sony and Emirates Airlines have not been replaced since the 2014 World Cup, "and 27 of 34 commercial slots remain unsold for the 2018 tournament in Russia." New sponsor deals "are likely to be announced soon," with Asian companies expected to step in (AP, 3/17).
