Blatter among ex-officials to enrich themselves - FIFA

British comedian known as Lee Nelson (unseen) throws banknotes at FIFA President Sepp Blatter as he arrives for a news conference after the Extraordinary FIFA Executive Committee Meeting at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland July 20, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

ZURICH - Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and two other leading officials were involved in a "coordinated attempt" to enrich themselves through annual salary increases and World Cup bonuses, world soccer's governing body said on Friday.

FIFA said an internal investigation revealed that the three officials had received 79 million Swiss francs ($80 million) in compensation over five years, calling them "massive payouts".

FIFA is attempting to recover from the worst graft scandal in its history in which 42 people, including former FIFA executive committee members, and entities have been indicted in the United States. Gianni Infantino was elected as president in February and promised to lead the FIFA into calmer waters.

The ruling body said it had shared the information about salaries with the Swiss Attorney General's office and the US Department of Justice and would continue to investigate.

Blatter, 80, did not wish to comment on the allegations, his spokesman said.

His US lawyer, Richard Cullen, said in a statement: "We look forward to showing FIFA that Mr. Blatter's compensation payments were proper, fair and in line with the heads of major professional sports leagues around the world."

A person close to Kattner said that "none of the information that was published is unknown to the compensation committee".

Payments were in line with FIFA's compensation policy and that they had been seen by KPMG which audit FIFA's finances, he said.

Valcke could not immediately be reached for comment.

FIFA said the investigation, conducted by its lawyers Quinn Emanuel, had revealed "evidence of breaches of fiduciary duty".

The findings were preliminary and warranted further investigation, it said.

"The evidence appears to reveal a coordinated effort by three former top officials of FIFA to enrich themselves through annual salary increases, World Cup bonuses and other incentives," said Bill Burck, a partner with Quinn Emanuel.

The sums received by the trio included 23 million Swiss francs in "special bonuses" for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, while Blatter and Valcke got a total of 14 million francs in bonusues for the 2014 World Cup Brazil and 15.5 million francs for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the firm said.

FIFA said that before 2013 the people who signed the contracts were "in principle" also the ones who approved them.

"They had the authority they needed, and they simply told payroll and HR (human resources), the department generally in charge for employment contracts at FIFA and which reported to Mr Kattner, how much should be paid out and to whom," said the report.

There were also questions over the compensation sub-committee which oversaw officials' compensation from 2013 onwards, the report said.

"At this stage, FIFA has not filed any formal complaint with the Office of the Attorney-General," spokesman Andre Marty told Radio Television Suisse (RTS) on Friday evening.

"If it does, we will evaluate their behaviour (of the three men) to see if it was criminal or not."