Former FIFA secretary general Valcke appeals 10-year ban

Former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against his 10-year ban from football, the tribunal said on Tuesday.

The Frenchman, whose job was to ensure the smooth running of FIFA and in particular its flagship World Cup tournament, was right-hand man to now banned president Sepp Blatter before both were embroiled in a corruption scandal which swept soccer's governing body in 2015.

Valcke was found guilty by FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert of misconduct over the sale of World Cup tickets, abuse of travel expenses, attempting to sell TV rights below their market value and destruction of evidence.

He was initially banned for 12 years, which was reduced to 10 by FIFA's own appeal committee last June.

CAS said the Frenchman "seeks to have the challenged decision set aside in order for the sanction imposed on him to be lifted definitively".

In September, FIFA's ethics committee opened a new investigation into Blatter, Valcke and former finance director Markus Kattner for possible ethics violations which included bribery and corruption. That investigation, in which all three deny wrongdoing, is still under way.