From Orange.co,uk via Sky News

Fifa bosses secretly doubled their salaries to $200,000 (£118,000) earlier this year, leaked documents reportedly reveal.

The alleged bumper pay rise, reported by The Sunday Times, comes despite football’s governing body facing some of the most serious corruption claims in its history.

The newspaper, which has published a series of damaging allegations in recent weeks, said the windfall was in addition to expenses of up to $100,000 (£58,800), plus free business class flights and five-star hotels, that executive committee (Exco) members can claim.

It claimed Fifa’s under-fire president, Sepp Blatter, also awarded members a total of $4.4m (£2.59m) in secret bonuses from cash the organisation raked in at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The Exco is Fifa’s main decision-making body and is made up of officials from every continent, most of whom hold down other jobs.

Led by Mr Blatter, it is the committee which controversially awarded Qatar the rights to host the 2022 World Cup.

Mohamed Bin Hammam, the country’s former football boss, is accused of paying bribes to officials in order to secure the competition.

The Sunday Times spoke to one serving Exco member, who said the 100% pay rise was to compensate for bonus payments that have now been axed.

These pay outs were worth $70,000 (£41,150) a year and up to $200,000 in World Cup years, the newspaper reported.

A Fifa spokesman told Sky News the organisation “cannot comment on every morsel The Sunday Times picks out of the hundreds of millions of emails they claim to have in their possession”.

He said Fifa does not comment on allegations but added: “We publish our financial report in line with international financial reporting standards on our website”.

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