Crans-Montana 2027 World Championships Chief Resigns Amid Fraud Charges

Claude-Alain Schmidhalter, vice president of Swiss-Ski and president of the organizing committee for the 2027 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Crans-Montana, has resigned from both positions after being temporarily removed from office amid criminal proceedings related to his business activities. The 62-year-old was suspended by Swiss-Ski and the Crans-Montana 2027 organizing committee on Wednesday, October 7, following an indictment by the public prosecutor’s office of the Swiss canton of Valais/Wallis. He resigned from both positions shortly afterward. The proceedings are unrelated to his work with Swiss-Ski or the 2027 World Championships.

• Related: Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Officially Confirmed as Host of the 2027 FIS Alpine World Championships

The 2027 Alpine World Championships are scheduled to take place in Crans-Montana from February 1-14, 2027, meaning the leadership change comes less than four months before the event. The organizing committee will now be led on an interim basis by vice president Sébastien Rey, representing the Association of the Crans-Montana Municipalities, and Diego Züger, a board member and co-CEO of Swiss-Ski.

Criminal Charges Relate to Engineering Business

The charges against Schmidhalter do not concern his work as a sports official. Instead, they relate to his engineering company in Brig-Glis, in the Upper Valais region of Switzerland. According to the indictment, Schmidhalter and an alleged accomplice are accused of defrauding a former business partner of more than CHF 300,000 ($360,000). The former partners had jointly owned and operated the engineering company for decades.

Under an agreement dating back to 2003, if one partner retired and left the company, the remaining owner would buy out the departing partner. The value of the shares was supposed to be determined partly by the company’s value and its profits over the previous three years. When the business partner prepared to retire in 2015, Schmidhalter and the alleged accomplice offered to purchase his shares. He rejected the offer, according to the indictment, because he believed the price was too low and demanded that the existing agreement be honored.

Prosecutors allege that Schmidhalter and his accomplice subsequently used another construction company in which the departing partner had no ownership interest to reduce the engineering company’s reported profits. According to the indictment, the second company allegedly issued excessively high invoices to the engineering company, effectively transferring money out of the jointly owned business. When the former partner was eventually bought out in 2020, prosecutors allege that the artificially reduced profits resulted in him receiving significantly less than he was owed. The alleged scheme caused the former business partner more than CHF 300,000 in damages, according to the indictment.

The Valais public prosecutor’s office is seeking a suspended 23-month prison sentence for both Schmidhalter and his alleged accomplice, along with a CHF 10,000 fine and CHF 55,000 in compensation to the alleged victim from each defendant. The case is scheduled to be heard October 27 at the Brig-Glis District Court.

Schmidhalter Denies Allegations

Schmidhalter has strongly denied the allegations and maintains that the accounting for his company was conducted correctly and in accordance with applicable regulations. “I firmly reject the allegations,” Schmidhalter said in a statement reported by Swiss media. He described the case as stemming from a long-running dispute with a former co-owner of their jointly operated company and said he was confident going into the court hearing.

Schmidhalter said he accepted Swiss-Ski’s decision to temporarily remove him from his positions but chose to resign immediately because the World Championships needed clarity. “I am doing it because the World Championships need clarity now,” Schmidhalter said. “An organizing committee president who is indefinitely on standby just a few months before the championships harms the project, for which I have worked with full conviction for years. I don’t want that.”

He added that the success of the 2027 World Championships and Swiss skiing remained his priority and said he was convinced the allegations would ultimately prove unfounded.

The presumption of innocence applies to Schmidhalter and the other defendant.

Second Leadership Disruption for Crans-Montana 2027

The resignation is the second significant personnel issue to affect the Crans-Montana World Championships organizing committee in recent months. In January, Crans-Montana mayor Nicolas Féraud left the organizing committee following the deadly fire at the Le Constellation bar in the resort. Féraud said he wanted to focus on dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. He has since also become the subject of an investigation related to the tragedy.

• Related: Crans-Montana Fire: First Victims Identified, Youngest Was Just 14 Years Old 

For Swiss-Ski, however, the federation has emphasized that the current criminal proceedings against Schmidhalter concern his entrepreneurial activities and have no connection to his work within the federation or the Crans-Montana 2027 organizing committee. Swiss-Ski and the World Championships organization said the temporary removal was intended to protect the integrity and ability of both organizations to operate.

With less than four months until the opening of the 2027 Alpine World Championships, the organizing committee will now move forward under interim leadership while Schmidhalter prepares to defend himself in court.