Valcke, FIFA’s director of marketing and TV, and colleagues Tom Houseman, Robert Lampman and Stefan Schuster were all shown the door by soccer’s governing body.
The former Sportfive COO, and Sport+ CEO, joined FIFA in 2003 and was responsible for overseeing the new look in-house FIFA marketing division.
And he has become the high-profile victim of the sponsorship row which grabbed the headlines last week.
A US judge had ruled long-time FIFA partner Mastercard should be reinstated as sponsor of the tournament for both 2010 and 2014 – despite arch-rival Visa being handed the deal by FIFA.
The court had declared that the sponsorship contract concluded between FIFA and Visa was invalid and therefore ordered FIFA to implement the contract that had been negotiated but not concluded with Mastercard on the grounds that FIFA had breached its obligation to give Mastercard first refusal.
A FIFA statement said: “In this context, the FIFA employees who had conducted negotiations with Visa and Mastercard were accused of repeated dishonesty during negotiations and of giving false information to the FIFA deciding bodies in question.
“Even though the judgment has proved to be very biased in favour of Mastercard, the fact cannot be overlooked that FIFA's negotiations breached its business principles. FIFA cannot possibly accept such conduct among its own employees.
“FIFA is currently considering lodging an appeal against the court's judgment, while taking account of the interests of every party involved and seeking suitable solutions.”
