Geneva FIFA has fired finance director and deputy secretary general Markus Kattner after an internal investigation revealed he got irregular bonus payments worth millions of dollars.
Kattner was due the payments over a six-year period from 2008-14 from additions to his employment contract, a person familiar with the FIFA investigation said on Monday.
The extra payments were signed off by then-President Sepp Blatter and then-secretary general Jerome Valcke, Kattner's immediate boss in that period.
"We don't yet understand why these payments were made," the person said on condition of anonymity as details of the investigation are confidential. "These contract provisions were not known widely and not to the appropriate officers at FIFA."
Kattner, who joined FIFA as director of finance in 2003, has been temporarily filling the top administrative job of world soccer's governing body since Valcke was suspended last year before being fired in January.
"Markus Kattner has been dismissed from his position effective immediately," FIFA said in a statement on Monday. "FIFA's internal investigation uncovered breaches of his fiduciary responsibilities in connection with his employment contract."
FIFA has already announced that United Nations official Fatma Samoura is due to start work next month as the new permanent secretary general.
Kattner's alleged wrongdoing came to light last Friday, the person said, one week after Samoura's hiring was announced by president Gianni Infantino.
The 45-year-old German official was at FIFA headquarters on Monday before his firing was announced.
Kattner handled the 2011 request to pay Michel Platini 2 million Swiss Francs ($2 million) which led to the UEFA president and Blatter being banned from soccer for four years.
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