Sepp Blatter has confirmed that Fifa has been forced to write off £3.6m paid to its former general secretary Urs Linsi when he was sacked this year two months after negotiating a new contract.
According to a report in today’s Guardian Linsi renegotiated his contract with a senior Fifa vice-president, Julio Grondona, but Grondona was apparently unaware that Blatter intended to sack Linsi even before he was re-elected for a third term at the Fifa congress in May.
The Fifa executive committee has told Blatter to pursue Linsi for the money, but it is understood the contract is legally binding and Fifa has no chance of recovering the money.
Fifa guidelines will be rewritten to avoid a repeat of the Linsi siuation, with only the president or the general secretary, Jerome Valcke, empowered to sign off staff contracts.
