Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) football club, President Nasser Al-Khelaifi, has been charged by a French judge over his involvement in corruption over Qatari bids to host this year’s world athletics championships.
Judicial sources quoted by an international media news agency said the case focused on the championships held in 2017 and 2019.
Mr Khelaifi, who is also the boss of Qatari TV channel BeIn Sports, has been under investigation since March and has been linked with two payments totalling $3.5m (£2.8m), made in 2011, are under scrutiny.
London won the bidding to host the championships in 2017, but Qatar is hosting this year’s championships in September-October.
It is alleged that the payments were made by Oryx Qatar Sports Investment a firm jointly owned by Nasser Al-Khelaifi and his brother Khalid to a firm run by the son of Lamine Diack, ex-president of the IAAF, the world athletics governing the body.
Lamine Diack, 85, was charged with corruption in March in relation to the case, while an arrest warrant has been issued for his Senegal-based son, Papa Massata Diack. Lamine Diack was IAAF chief in 1999-2015.
The French term “mis en examen” meaning “charged” in English does not automatically trigger a trial but means that prosecutors strongly suspect wrongdoing.
Another BeIn Sports executive, Yousef Al-Obaidly, is also under investigation in France over the awarding of the 2017 championships. He is a PSG board member.
Mr Obaidly, quoted by his lawyer, called the allegations “utterly baseless and unsubstantiated” and said he would contest them.
Meanwhile, a lawyer for Mr Khelaifi denied any wrongdoing on the part of his client, saying the Oryx payments were fully transparent.
“Nasser Al-Khelaifi was neither a shareholder nor a director of Oryx in 2011. He did not intervene either directly or indirectly in the candidature of Doha,” he said.
PSG won the French Ligue 1 championship this season but was knocked out of the Champions League by Manchester United.