Paris (AFP) – French judicial authorities have charged the president of Paris Saint-Germain football club, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, with complicity in abuse of power concerning shareholder voting at a company, a source close to the case said Thursday. Al-Khelaifi was charged on February 5 with complicity in the alleged buying of a vote and harming of freedom to vote over a switch in the voting of a Qatari investment fund on the board of the Lagardere Group in 2018, a judicial source added, with both sources asking not to be named.
The PSG chief, who has led the record 12-times French Ligue 1 champions since its 2011 takeover by Qatar Sports Investments with the dream of making the team Europe’s best, has faced several legal cases in recent years but always denied any wrongdoing. “This file has absolutely and emphatically nothing to do with Nasser Al-Khelaifi, but as usual he will get dragged through a completely spurious process as a famous name, who is apparently responsible for anything and everything, until everything quietly disappears without any grounds whatsoever in a few years,” said a source close to the Qatari, also asking not to be named.
Lagardere Group chief Arnaud Lagardere is suspected of having fraudulently used some 125 million euros ($129 million at today’s rates) of funds from the group for several years to fund his personal expenses. The case against Al-Khelaifi, who is known in France as “NAK”, concerns a time in 2018 when there was a power struggle on the board between billionaire right-wing tycoon Vincent Bollore, who was allied to the Amber Capital investment fund, and France’s richest man Bernard Arnault, the boss of the LVMH luxury goods firm who supported Arnaud Lagardere.
On April 24, 2018, Qatar Holding LLC, a subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and the main shareholder of Lagardere Group, had positioned itself in favour of the resolutions of Amber Capital. Arnaud Lagardere and his aides are accused of calling their contacts, including Al-Khelaifi in his capacity as a director of the QIA. Five days after the first vote, the QIA changed its position and voted in favour of the resolutions put forward by Arnaud Lagardere.
The Lagardere Group was bought after a bitter battle at the end of November 2023 by media and publishing giant Vivendi, controlled by the family of Bollore. A previous indictment against Al-Khelaifi for alleged corruption over Qatar’s bids for the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships was definitively annulled in mid-February 2023 by France’s Court of Cassation, which ruled that the French justice system was incompetent to prosecute him. Parisian investigating magistrates are also probing Al-Khelaifi over accusations of the alleged kidnapping and sequestration in Qatar of Franco-Algerian lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane. Al-Khelaifi denies the accusations and has himself filed a complaint.
© 2024 AFP
