Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the chief executive of Qatar's beIN media and head of French football club Paris Saint-Germain, was interviewed by Swiss prosecutors on Wednesday as part of a criminal probe into FIFA Wold Cup broadcasting deals.
Office of the Attorney General spokesman Andre Marty confirmed that Khelaifi had arrived in the Swiss capital Bern for questioning in an investigation that also includes FIFA's banned former Secretary General Jerome Valcke.
"We began the interrogation of the accused person at about 9:45 am (0745) this morning here at the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland,” Marty said.
He said questioning would last for several hours "due to the translation issues and the many questions we have".
The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said on October 12 that it suspected that Valcke had accepted "undue advantages" from Khelaifi in connection with the award of media rights for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups.
Khelaifi's French lawyer, Francis Szpiner had previously announced that his sports tycoon client "denies any corruption" and "wanted to be heard as soon as possible" by Swiss prosecutors.
FIFA has been trying to overhaul its operations in the wake of the worst crisis in its history, sparked in 2015 by the indictment in the United States of several dozen football officials on corruption-related charges.
