PSG boss Nasser Al-Khelaïfi is the target of a second investigation for concealed work after the complaint of his ex-Moroccan butler Hicham Karmoussi, AFP learned on Wednesday from the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from Le Monde. The public prosecutor confirmed that Mr. Karmoussi’s complaint had been “entrusted for investigation to the 16th arrondissement police station”.
“It relates, in the words of the complainant, to possible offenses of hidden work, and exploitation of vulnerable people,” said the prosecution. Mr. Karmoussi’s lawyer, Me Antoine Ory, told AFP that he had filed a civil suit and was awaiting the upcoming appointment of an investigating judge.
In his March complaint, this 48-year-old former professional tennis player claimed to have started assisting “NAK” in the mid-2000s, then to have worked for him “full time” from 2011, the year of the arrival of his boss at the head of PSG. All without an employment contract and while living at home.
His working and living conditions at Nasser Al-Khelaïfi’s home “degraded” from 2015, he asserted. Mr. Karmoussi also claims to have “kept” in 2017, at the request of his boss, several confidential documents including “a USB key containing numerous contracts concluded” with Jérôme Valcke, the former secretary general of Fifa, in order to avoid that they are found during a search.
A first investigation opened a year ago
A source close to the PSG boss responded to this complaint by describing Mr. Karmoussi as a “criminal”, accused of having “attempted to blackmail” Mr. Al-Khelaïfi, which could result in him being prosecuted in a procedure distinct. No one in “NAK’s” entourage could immediately be reached Wednesday evening.
Mr. Karmoussi has already been heard as a witness in the investigation into the conditions for awarding the 2022 World Cup, and has become a civil party in another procedure opened after the complaint of lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane denouncing his sequestration in Qatar, which allegedly according to the latter, it was notably orchestrated by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, which the PSG boss forcefully rejects.
A first preliminary investigation for concealed work was already targeting, since mid-January 2023, PSG and Nasser Al-Khelaïfi after a complaint filed according to L’Équipe and Le Monde by another ex-advisor.
