The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Oscars, has ruled it will expel the powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein over allegations of sexual abuse.

The 54-member Board of Governors met Saturday to discuss the allegations and voted overwhelmingly to “immediately expel” the mogul famous for his ability to push small, well-made pictures into the Oscars race.

In a statement, the board said the decision to oust Weinstein was “well in excess of the required two-thirds majority.” It also said the expulsion was made “to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over.”

It called the allegations that Weinstein traded professional favors for sexual ones “a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our society.”

WATCH: Observers Looking to Hollywood to Take Lead on Sexual Harassment

​Allegations

Weinstein’s expulsion comes after allegations emerged that Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted a number of women over the past three decades.

Earlier this week, the British film academy said Weinstein’s membership in the organization had been “suspended, effective immediately.”

Weinstein was fired Monday by the board of his production company, the Weinstein Co., following an explosive New York Times report just days earlier, in which 13 women accused him of sexually harassing or assaulting them.

On Wednesday, French actress Lea Seydoux and model and actress Cara Delevingne joined the fast-growing list of Weinstein accusers.

Meanwhile, celebrity news website TMZ reported that Weinstein’s daughter called 911 Wednesday morning to say her dad was suicidal.

When officers responded to the call, Weinstein’s daughter Remy, told them no suicidal statements were made, and it was purely a family dispute. TMZ also reports Weinstein planned to leave the country for a rehab center sometime later that day.

New Yorker interview

On Tuesday, another report from The New Yorker emerged, in which three women accused Weinstein of raping them. Actresses Asia Argento and Lucia Evans went on the record in The New Yorker story to accuse Weinstein of raping them, while another woman chose to remain anonymous.

Among the accusers are some of Hollywood’s top stars, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette.

​The New Yorker story said 16 current and former employees at The Weinstein Co. and Miramax, which Weinstein co-founded with his brother Bob, either witnessed or knew of Weinstein’s sexual abuse. According to the report, all of those employees said Weinstein’s sexual deviancy was widely known within the two companies.

The 65-year-old Weinstein oversaw production of many popular films over the past 30 years, including Shakespeare in Love, Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, The English Patient, Good Will Hunting and The Butler. He ran Miramax and later the Weinstein movie companies with Bob Weinstein.

Weinstein’s fall came quickly after the Times report Oct. 5 of his unwanted sexual advances that stretched over nearly 30 years. The story said Weinstein, who is known in Hollywood for his demanding control of film productions and angry outbursts, had paid confidential settlements to his female accusers.

In a statement last week, Weinstein said, “The way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” Later, he claimed some of the newspaper’s claims were false and said he would sue for defamation.

​Politics

Weinstein has been a big donor in recent years to Democratic politicians in the U.S., including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But with the sexual harassment revelations, Democratic political figures scrambled over the weekend to distance themselves from the disgraced filmmaker.

Several Democrat politicians, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren, have promised to donate money they received from Weinstein to charities supporting women.

Clinton broke her silence on the matter earlier this week, saying she was “shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein.” She addedin a statement, “The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated.”

“Any man who demeans and degrades women in such fashion needs to be condemned and held accountable, regardless of wealth or status,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement Tuesday. “We should celebrate the courage of women who have come forward to tell these painful stories.”

President Donald Trump said over the weekend he’s “known Harvey Weinstein for a long time” and he is “not at all surprised” by the sexual abuse allegations.

Matt Damon’s first film, Good Will Hunting, won him his first Oscar after Weinstein took a chance on a script from Damon and fellow unknown, Ben Affleck.

“We know this stuff goes on in the world. I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this,” Damon told CNN’s Deadline in an interview published Tuesday.

He added later in the interview: “This morning, I just feel absolutely sick to my stomach.”
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The United States’ National Portrait Gallery has announced that two up-and-coming African-American artists, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, have been selected to paint the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

The Smithsonian Institution, parent organization of the National Portrait Gallery, said Friday that President Obama had specifically requested to be painted by Wiley, 40, whose portraits of young black men have made a sharp impact on the art world.

Wiley places his young models in poses reminiscent of famous court painters of previous centuries, such as Diego Velazquez, Peter Paul Rubens, and Hans Holbein. He paints many of his subjects larger than life, using gauzy realism and vivid colors to arrest the viewer’s attention.

Wiley, born in Los Angeles, California, has been considered a successful artist for more than a decade.

His images replace the white subjects of his forbears with handsome young African-American men and women in front of decorative backdrops that resemble wallpaper. Some of the backdrops contain designs that overlap the figure in the portrait, raising questions about whether the subject has power over his environment or is trapped by it.

​Some of Wiley’s subjects are famous, such as rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J, whose portrait shows him seated, larger than life, coolly aloof as he gazes down on his audience in front of a vibrant red and green damask pattern.

In recent years Wiley has conducted what he calls his World Stage project, painting subjects from a variety of far-flung places, such as China, Jamaica, Haiti, Sri Lanka and Brazil. His paintings place people of color in settings where they radiate power, beauty and grace equal to the light-skinned subjects who for centuries were the focus of similar portraits.

First lady’​s portrait

Michelle Obama chose Sherald, winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s annual portraiture competition in 2016, to paint her portrait as first lady.

Sherald is a 44-year-old African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, scene of protests in 2015 over the death while in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man.

With racial tensions still running high in her hometown, Sherald’s portraits, like Wiley’s, focus on her African-American subjects in a way that emphasizes grace, dignity and each person’s unique features.

Sherald’s work is full of poised energy. Some of her images look almost flat, like cutouts, but the faces and bodies of her subjects look as though they were asked to stop and pose in the middle of a movement, a thought or a breath.

The painting for which Sherald won the National Portrait Gallery is called “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)” and features a young black woman dressed in a navy blue dress, white gloves and a striking red hat, holding an oversized white teacup and saucer. The subject looks graceful and relaxed while her eyes bore into the viewer in an unspoken challenge.

The work of both artists examines and challenges ideas about black identity, a prominent concept in the legacy of the nation’s first African-American presidential couple.

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery and the White House work together at the conclusion of each presidency to commission two official sets of portraits, with one set for display at the White House and one at the National Portrait Gallery. Both collections are in Washington, D.C.

In a statement Friday, Director Kim Sajet said the National Portrait Gallery “is absolutely delighted that Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald have agreed to create the official portraits of our former president and first lady.”

Sajet noted that both artists have been very successful, but more importantly, she said, “they make art that reflects the power and potential of portraiture in the 21st century.”

The portraits are expected to be unveiled in early 2018.
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The impoverished family of Australia’s most famous Aboriginal artist, Albert Namatjira, has been given copyright to his works after years of fruitless campaigning triggered the intervention of a philanthropist.

Namatjira’s vibrant water colors are internationally celebrated for the way he captured the hues of the Western Desert in the center of the country.

One of his paintings was given to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in 1947 on her 21st birthday, and he met the queen during her 1954 coronation tour in Canberra.

Dick Smith, the Australian businessman whose intervention secured the agreement, told Reuters it was the most satisfying philanthropic thing he had done.

“It’s a just cause,” Smith told Reuters Saturday.

Rights sold, lost

Born in 1902 in Hermannsburg, a remote Aboriginal community in central Australia’s West MacDonnell ranges, Albert Namatjira rose to prominence as the first Aboriginal artist to master a Western tradition.

In 1957, he sold partial copyright for his works to a friend, John Brackenreg.

Two years later, Namatjira died and his will passed the copyright remainder to his widow, Robina, and their children. This gave his family a source of royalty income when reproductions of the images were used.

However, his estate executors gave the administration of his will to the public trustee of the state of the Northern Territory, which sold the copyright to Brackenreg’s company, Legend Press, in 1983 without consulting the family, ABC News reported.

All royalty payments to Namatjira’s descendents ceased, and when Brackenreg died, he passed copyright to his children.

Campaign begins

Eight years ago, arts organization Big hART, began campaigning for the return of the copyright.

They put together a theater show called Namatjira, which toured Australia for three years before traveling to London where in 2013 Queen Elizabeth met two of Namatjira’s grandchildren.

News reports caught the eye of Smith, whose father once worked for Brackenreg. Smith persuaded Brackenreg’s children to give copyright to the Namatjira Legacy Trust, which represents the family, for A$1 on Friday. Smith also donated A$250,000 ($197,200) to the trust.

It is the latest in Smith’s long list of charitable acts, which included contributing to the ransom that freed Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan, taken hostage in Somalia in 2008.

Sophia Marinos, the chair of the Namatjira Legacy Trust, said the money would benefit the whole Aboriginal community with funds for language and cultural programs.
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Harvey Weinstein, one of Hollywood’s most powerful men, is now disgraced and may eventually face criminal charges involving decades of alleged sexual harassment. Weinstein’s studio has put out blockbuster movies such as “Gangs of New York,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The King’s Speech.” VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes a look at whether the conversation on unwanted sexual advances is changing in the United States and how that affects the issue globally.
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UNESCO’s executive board voted Friday to make a former French government minister the U.N. cultural agency’s next chief after an unusually heated election that was overshadowed by Middle East tensions.

The board’s selection of Audrey Azoulay over a Qatari candidate came the day after the United States announced that it intends to pull out of UNESCO because of its alleged anti-Israel bias.

The news rocked a weeklong election already marked by geopolitical resentments, concerns about the Paris-based agency’s dwindling funding and questions about its future purpose.

 

If confirmed by UNESCO’s general assembly next assembly next month, Azoulay will succeed outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, whose eight-year term was marred by financial woes and criticism over Palestine’s inclusion in 2011 as a member state.

 

Azoulay narrowly beat Qatar’s Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kawari in the final 30-28 vote after she won a runoff with a third finalist from Egypt earlier Friday. The outcome was a blow for Arab states that have long wanted to lead the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

 

UNESCO has had European, Asian, African and American chiefs, but never one from an Arab country.

In brief remarks after she won the election, Azoulay, 45, said the response to UNESCO’s problems should be to reform the agency, not to walk away from it.

“In this moment of crisis, I believe we must invest in UNESCO more than ever, look to support and reinforce it, and to reform it. And not leave it,” she said.

The new director will set priorities for the organization best known for its World Heritage program to protect cultural sites and traditions. The agency also works to improve education for girls, promote an understanding of the Holocaust’s horrors, defend media freedom and coordinate science on climate change.

The next leader also will have to contend with the withdrawal of both the U.S. and Israel, which applauded its ally for defending it and said Thursday that it also would be leaving UNESCO.

 

The election itself had become highly politicized even before the U.S. announced its planned departure.

 

Azoulay started the week with much less support than Qatar’s al-Kawari but built up backing as other candidates dropped out. She went on to win a runoff with a third finalist, Moushira Khattab of Egypt. Egypt’s foreign ministry has demanded an inquiry into alleged “violations” during the voting.

 

Jewish groups opposed al-Kawari, citing a preface he wrote to a 2013 Arabic book called “Jerusalem in the Eyes of the Poets” that they claimed was anti-Semitic. He wrote, “We pray to God to liberate (Jerusalem) from captivity and we pray to God to give Muslims the honor of liberating it.”

In March, the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote an open letter to German Ambassador Michael Worbs, chair of the UNESCO Executive Board, to criticize the organization for accepting the former Qatari culture minister’s candidacy.

During the months leading up to the election, Egypt and three other Arab nations were engaged in a boycott of Qatar over allegations that the government funds extremists and has overly warm ties to Iran.

French media reported that Qatar recently invited several members of the UNESCO executive board on an all-expenses-paid trip to the country’s capital, Doha.

 

Azoulay’s late entry into the leadership race in March also annoyed many UNESCO member states that argued that France shouldn’t field a candidate since it hosts the agency. Arab intellectuals urged French President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw his support for her.

She will be UNESCO’s second female chief and its second French chief after Rene Maheu, UNESCO’s director general from 1961-74. While she is Jewish, her father is Moroccan and was an influential adviser to Moroccan kings, so she also has a connection to the Arab world.

The Trump administration had been preparing for a likely withdrawal from UNESCO for months, but the timing of the State Department’s announcement that it would leave at the end of 2018 was unexpected. Along with hostility to Israel, the U.S. cited “the need for fundamental reform in the organization.”

The outgoing Bokova expressed “profound regret” at the U.S. decision and defended UNESCO’s reputation.

 

The U.S. stopped funding UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a member state in 2011, but the State Department has maintained a UNESCO office and sought to weigh in on policy behind the scenes. UNESCO says the U.S. now owes about $550 million in back payments.

Azoulay acknowledged the image of the organization — founded after World War II to foster peace, but marred by infighting between Arab member states and Israel and its allies — needed rebuilding.

“The first thing I will do will be to focus on restoring its credibility,” she said.

While UNESCO’s general assembly must sign off month on the executive board’s leadership pick, but officials said the confirmation vote typically is a formality.
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In an exclusive interview with VOA, the secretary-general of FIFA, Fatma Samoura, talks about preparations for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and on the reform process within the International Federation of Football.

FIFA, football’s governing world body, has been mired in claims of corruption since 2015, when the U.S. Justice Department indicted several top executives, including President Sepp Blattner.

The FBI began investigating FIFA after the world body awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, two countries that have come under widespread criticism for their human rights records. The interview is translated from French.

The Confederations Cup, which took place in Russia, was a rehearsal of the 2018 World Cup. Is Russia now ready?

Samoura: “We have every reason to think that it will be ready and that it will offer a fantastic World Cup in 2018. At the Confederations Cup, we saw a fascination from the spectators, no reproaches from the media and from the very well-received teams.

The focus is now on the eight stadiums that are not yet inaugurated. There are stadiums still under construction and hotels but it is not new …  We have no worries.”

Will Qatar be ready in time for 2022? Is the embargo of neighboring countries worrying you?

Samoura: “The preparations are well advanced since the appointment of 2010. They have 12 years to be ready. The al-Khalifa stadium has already been inaugurated last year and other stadiums are under construction.

“The competition will be compact, where fans will have the opportunity to see several matches per day since all the stadiums are located within a radius of 60 kilometers (37 miles). This World Cup will take place in winter for obvious reasons of high heat in the countries of the Gulf.

“In terms of the diplomatic crisis, things are progressing well and efforts are under way. Five years from the competition, we have no reason to believe that the geopolitical situation will be the same in 2022.”

When current FIFA President Gianni Infantino talks about a more transparent allocation process for 2026, what is it?

Samoura: “We are following the recommendations of the John Ruggie report on human rights, transparency and better governance of football. We consulted extensively with the Human Rights Advisory Board; confederations and football have a more lasting legacy of the world’s cuts to future generations.”

Morocco will face the United States, Mexico and Canada for the hosting of the 2026 World Cup. What is your opinion on that?

Samoura: “The best wins! The decision will be made in June 2018.”

A year ago, in our previous interview, you said that there was a need for “transparent management of resources, people and infrastructure” at FIFA. Did you succeed in your ambition?

Samoura: “It’s a job that’s not done in a day. I’ve been here for less than a year-and-a-half, and the bet of diversity has been won. We are now seven women on the FIFA Council. There was only one before my arrival.

“On management, we now have eight people who are in charge of compliance with the monitoring and use of the funds allocated by FIFA to the 211 federations and the six confederations. In the past, some 40 federations have been audited by FIFA, and we are currently at 76. The aim is to achieve 100 in the near future, which is a more rigorous and strict follow-up.”

What is the financial health of FIFA? Should we worry about deficits?

Samoura: “Our financial situation is superb despite a deficit of $369 million for 2016 fiscal year. We are working on four-year cycles and still expect a profit of $100 million at the end of this cycle. In the first three years, we finance competitions and operations, and the generation of resources and revenues is linked to the kick-off of the World Cup.

“We have reserves of more than one billion Swiss francs, which can be used, but it is not relevant …This deficit does not reflect the financial health of the institution.”

In Bahrain, Gianni Infantino said the FIFA corruption crisis was over and will never happen again. How can we believe that?

Samoura: “President Infantino is absolutely right, because people who committed misdemeanors at the level of confederations or member associations have been charged and a new leadership has been set up at FIFA.

“The most important thing for us is that reforms ensure that this kind of situation does not happen again, by strengthening our control system.”

Is this transparent management undermined by the eviction of Cornel Borbély, head of the Investigation Chamber of the Ethics Commission, and Hans-Joachim Eckert, head of the Ethics Commission’s Trial Chamber?

Samoura: “Many members of our commission completed their mandates in May 2017. Some members had their mandates renewed by the Congress. Other members arrived with a view to greater geographical representativeness and male parity.

“The current president of the Chamber, Maria Claudia Rojas, is the former president of the Court of Justice in Colombia and her competencies cannot be doubted.”

Your detractors present you as without experience in football. What do you say to them?

Samoura: “I was recruited because I am a competent woman, and I run an administration that is no different from crisis management in the United Nations system.

“The objective was clear: to recruit someone who is not part of the football family, who has experience in reform and governance and who could bring diversity and transparency and put the human aspect at the center of decisions of FIFA. That’s what I do on a day-to-day basis.”
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Following the U.S. decision Thursday to quit the United Nations organization for education, science and culture, Israel announced it too will withdraw. The United States stopped funding UNESCO after the Palestinian Authority was accepted into the agency as a full member. As a member subject to membership dues, the United States accumulated a $600 million debt over the years. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, the Trump administration also cited anti-Israel bias as a reason for withdrawal.
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Bruno Mars topped the field of American Music Awards nominations announced Thursday, receiving eight nods, while The Chainsmokers, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd received five nominations apiece.

Mars, The Chainsmokers, Drake, Lamar and Sheeran received nominations for the artist of the year award, the top AMA prize.

Justin Bieber, Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi received four nominations each, including favorite pop/rock song for their hit collaboration Despacito. The video for Despacito, which set the record for most-watched clip on YouTube with more than 3 billion views, was also nominated for video of the year.

Keith Urban led country artists with three nominations. Nominees for the new artist of the year were James Arthur, Niall Horan, Julia Michaels, Post Malone and Rae Sremmurd.

Alessia Cara, Lady Gaga and Rihanna were nominated for the favorite female pop/rock artist award.

The awards show will air live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on November 19 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC. The AMA winners are determined by a vote of fans.
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The 2018 World Cup will be a unique test of soccer’s appeal in the United States.

Will Americans still watch if their national team isn’t there? Fox certainly is hoping so.

The U.S. failed to qualify for next year’s World Cup in Russia when it lost at Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night, and the effects of that defeat may be felt for quite some time. The team, and indeed the whole U.S. Soccer Federation, faces a period of soul searching – but broadcasters, sponsors and tournament organizers also could feel the impact of the Americans’ absence.

Fox, which broadcasts next year’s World Cup, offered only a brief statement Wednesday – which did provide some insight as to how the network likely will promote a World Cup without the U.S.

 

“Last night’s World Cup qualifying results do not change FOX Sports’ passion for the world’s biggest sporting event,” the statement said. “While the U.S. was eliminated, the biggest stars in the world from Lionel Messi to Cristiano Ronaldo stamped their tickets to Russia on the same day, and will battle teams ranging from Mexico to England that have massive fan bases in America.”

 

Fans in the U.S. are familiar with stars like Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar. Top European club teams now have American followings, which suggests that soccer in the U.S. can withstand a short-term slump for the national team.

 

An estimated 26.5 million people in the U.S. watched Germany’s victory over Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil, and the 2018 final figures to be a major draw as well. But a U.S.-Portugal match in the group stage of the 2014 tournament had 24.7 million viewers – and that’s the type of interest that might be absent from earlier games in 2018.

 

“It’s going to hurt a little bit,” said Austin Karp, an assistant managing editor of SportsBusiness Daily. “You’re not going to have any buildup there toward the summer, with the U.S. team playing either friendlies – or talk about how the U.S. team is going to do, promotion of the U.S. team on Fox properties like baseball or other spring stuff they might have. … The U.S. matches were some of the strongest audiences for ESPN-ABC the last couple of iterations of the tournament. The final will still be OK.”

 

Fox broadcast the Women’s World Cup in 2015, but next year will be its first time carrying the men’s tournament since winning U.S. English-language World Cup rights back in 2011. Now Fox’s 2018 tournament won’t have the Americans, and ratings for the 2022 event in Qatar could be affected by the fact that it is set to be held in November and December to avoid the searing summer desert heat, instead of its usual calendar spot midway through the year.

 

The U.S. team’s failure to qualify for 2018 dented shares of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. on Wednesday. The stock fell 66 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $26.11. But concerns over Fox’s outlook may be overblown, according to a report from Pivotal Research Group. According to the group’s study, the U.S. team accounted for about 20 percent of ESPN’s total viewing for the 2014 tournament – a significant figure but not an overwhelming one. Fox certainly will miss having the Americans in 2018, but the U.S. played only four games in Brazil last time.

 

“While it might make a difference for the lay viewer who is only going to watch the U.S. games, that’s just a small subset of the total viewing,” said Brian Wieser, a senior research analyst for Pivotal Research Group.

 

So the show must go on for broadcasters – and sponsors are trying to make the best of the situation as well.

 

“Like all American soccer fans, we are disappointed the team will not be participating in the World Cup, but still recognize the huge growth opportunity for soccer in the U.S.,” said Ricardo Marques, a vice president of marketing for Budweiser. “As the official beer of the World Cup and a longtime FIFA partner, Budweiser will continue to tap into our fans’ passion for soccer here and globally.”

Over in Russia, meanwhile, the reaction to the U.S. ouster was muted. American fans have attended the World Cup in droves recently – more than 200,000 tickets for games in Brazil were purchased by U.S. residents. FIFA said Tuesday that the U.S. was among the top 10 countries for ticket applications so far for 2018, along with other non-qualifiers like China and Israel. Some applications by U.S. residents are likely to have been made by supporters of other teams, such as Mexico.

 

Still, many in Russia focused instead on the failure to qualify of neighboring Ukraine, which occasionally had threatened to boycott the tournament over Russia’s backing for separatist groups in eastern Ukraine. Vyacheslav Koloskov, the Russian Football Union honorary president, said the United States’ absence was a missed opportunity to improve Russia-U.S. relations.

 

“The non-participation of the U.S. reduces the chances of players, and indirectly of American fans, to see the transformations taking place in our country,” he told Russian agency R-Sport.

 

Koloskov added that the U.S. team was “nothing special” and so its absence “won’t have any effect on our World Cup in a sporting sense.”

 
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The Qatari president of one of Europe’s most glamorous soccer clubs, Paris Saint-Germain, is under investigation by Swiss prosecutors for suspected bribery of a top FIFA executive to get World Cup broadcasting rights.

 

Criminal proceedings against Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG president and CEO of Qatar-owned BeIN Media Group, former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, and an unnamed “businessman in the sports rights sector” was announced by the office of Switzerland’s attorney general on Thursday.

 

The case involves the award of broadcast rights for the next four World Cups from 2018 through 2030.

 

The proceeding against Al-Khelaifi is one of the first direct links to Qatar in sweeping investigations by federal law enforcement authorities in Switzerland, the United States, and France of FIFA, international soccer, and the 2018-2022 World Cup bidding contests.

 

The Paris offices of BeIN Sports were searched by two magistrates from the French financial prosecutor’s office, the federal agency said. They were assisted by investigators from an anti-corruption unit.

 

Properties were also searched in Greece, Italy, and Spain while Valcke was questioned in Switzerland, the Swiss federal prosecution office said. It cited cooperation from a European Union criminal investigation agency.

 

“Multiple premises were searched, assets were seized and interviews were conducted as a result of this joint operation,” the EU body known as Eurojust said in a statement.

 

PSG declined to comment.

 

No suspect was detained on Thursday, said Swiss prosecutors whose work investigating FIFA and suspected money laundering linked to World Cup hosting bids began in November 2014.

 

Then, FIFA gave the Swiss federal office a report and evidence from its then-ethics prosecutor – former U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia – into the dual World Cup bidding contest won by Russia and Qatar.  

 

Al-Khelaifi is alleged to have offered “undue advantages” to Valcke – FIFA’s CEO-like secretary general from 2007 until his firing in January 2016 – for the award of media rights in “certain countries” for the 2026 and 2030 World Cup.

 

Al-Khelaifi and Valcke previously negotiated a deal for the 2018 and 2022 rights weeks after Qatar won the 2022 hosting vote. In January 2011, FIFA announced that Al Jazeera Sports – which later became BeIN – secured the rights for 23 territories across the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia.

FIFA has never announced if BeIN also secured any 2026 and 2030 World Cup rights.

 

Swiss prosecutors also allege Valcke received “undue advantages” from a businessman who was not identified to award certain media rights for four World Cups from 2018 through 2030.

 

The criminal proceeding was opened on March 20, but announced only on Thursday, the Swiss federal office said.

 

Al-Khelaifi’s profile has risen in recent weeks as PSG pursued and sealed a world record transfer of Brazil star Neymar from Barcelona for 222 million euros ($260 million).

 

Since FIFA’s much-discredited executive committee picked Russia and Qatar in December 2010, the gas-rich emirate has bought up PSG with sovereign wealth and installed Al-Khelaifi as president. BeIN has also acquired a broad portfolio of rights including from European soccer body UEFA for the Champions League and national team matches.

 

The latest case stemming from the wider investigation of FIFA’s business also saw criminal proceedings opened against Valcke in March 2016.

 

Valcke was the right-hand man to then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter for more than eight years until a swathe of senior executives at soccer’s world body were removed from office in fallout from a U.S. Department of Justice indictment revealed in May 2015.

 

Valcke, a French former TV presenter, was in Switzerland on Wednesday to testify at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in his appeal hearing against a 10-year ban by FIFA for financial wrongdoing and abuse of expenses.

 

FIFA said on Thursday it “fully supports the investigation” by Swiss and other authorities.

 

“FIFA has constituted itself as a damaged party in this investigation,” the Zurich-based organization said.

FIFA is seeking a share of more than $200 million held by the U.S. Department of Justice which secured forfeits from soccer and marketing officials in its ongoing investigation. The DoJ has indicted or secured guilty pleas from more than 40 people.
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Every two years, Australia holds the World Solar Challenge. It is a grueling 3,000-kilometer race across the Australian outback in cars powered only by the sun. Everyone from high school engineers to corporate sponsored giants is free to compete, and every year the cars go farther, and faster than before. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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