L’Équipe via AFP report this morning that Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al Khelaifi has been the subject of a legal complaint on the part of his former butler, who is accusing him of “undeclared work” as well as “harassment“.
The complainant, a 48-year-old names Hicham Karmoussi, alleges that Al Khelaifi resorted to employing a foreigner who did not have a work permit, harassment, threats, and working conditions “which are contrary to human dignity”. Karmoussi’s lawyer, Antoine Ory, has claimed that his client “worked for years without a contract nor residence permit for Mr. Al Khelaifi at an unbearable rate.”
According to a source who is close to Al Khelaifi, Karmoussi is a “criminal” who “in the last few weeks has looked to blackmail” the PSG president.
A preliminary investigation was opened in February against PSG and Al Khelaifi on charges of undeclared work as well following a complaint by Hicham Bouajila, who had claimed that he had been working for the former two for years but that his salary was paid by a Doha-based tennis academy, called Smash – as is the case with Karmoussi, AFP adds.
The latter, who like his former boss is a former tennis player, claims that he began working in the industry in the mid-2000s by assisting Al Khelaifi and began working for him full-time from 2011, when he arrived at PSG – all the while not having a contract His working conditions allegedly worsened from 2015. In 2017, Al Khelaifi is said to have asked him to “clean the house” to hide potential evidence when the beIN Sports headquarters in western Paris were raided on request of the Swiss authorities, as part of the investigation into the awarding of the broadcasting rights of the 2026 and 2030 World Cup.
In a statement made to RMC Sport in their reporting of the story, Al Khelaifi dismisses the accusers as “professional criminals” who have “changed lawyers more often than they’ve changed their story and their lies”.
“It’s media manipulation. I’m just surprised that so many people have considered their lies and contradictions as credible – but that’s the world of media that we live in these days. Justice will run its course – I have no time to talk about small-time criminals.”
GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin