Lagardere is suspected of fraudulently using €125m of funds from the luxury goods firm Lagardere Group for personal use.
Al-Khelaifi’s alleged involvement dates back to 2018 as part of a dispute between Lagardere and French billionaire Vincent Bollore. Lagardere won a key board vote, but only after Lagardere Group’s main shareholder, Qatar Holding, changed its position.
Al-Khelaifi was allegedly called by Lagardere and persuaded to influence the vote, a charge the PSG president denies. Al-Khelaifi is a board member of Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), of which Qatar Holding is a subsidiary.
“I’m surprised to be here today,” Al-Khelaifi told investigators last Wednesday. “I had no influence in this case. I find myself in the middle of a case in which I have no connection whatsoever, all on the basis of a single telephone communication concerning a problem with Qatar, a question I had to pass on, and my role was limited to that. The parties quote ‘Nasser here, Nasser there’. To defend themselves, they quote my name.”
“This file has absolutely and emphatically nothing to do with Nasser Al-Khelaifi,” added a source close to 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.”
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Al-Khelaifi may sit on the board of QIA, but his day-to-day role and power lies within Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), and there has already been confusion in the French court about the different entities and their remits.
It is not the first time Al-Khelaifi has been involved in French legal proceedings. French prosecutors were called “incompetant” as a previous indictment against Al-Khelaifi for alleged corruption over Qatar’s bids for the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships was annulled in February 2023 by France’s Court of Cassation.
And Al-Khelaifi is accused of playing a role in the alleged kidnapping of Franco-Algerian lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane. This is strenuously denied by Al-Khelaifi and Benabderrahmane’s claims have been countered with multiple blackmail and defamation suits.
QSI remain committed to PSG, and wider sports investment in France, despite frustration with what is viewed as targeted and baseless attacks against Al-Khelaifi.
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