Much of the crisis can be linked to the controversial decision in 2010 by FIFA’s governing executive committee to pick Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups after a bidding race that was troubled by accusations of corruption.

Qatar, a tiny desert state without a discernible soccer culture, but home to the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves, defeated a bid from the United States in a final round of voting. Several of the men who took part in that vote have either been charged or remain under investigation by the authorities in the United States, Switzerland and France.

Long under the shadow of its larger Gulf neighbors, Qatar hopes to use the World Cup — the world’s most-watched sporting event — to burnish its place as a global leader. But its victory in the bidding has instead brought a deluge of negative publicity, from allegations of corrupting the voting process, which it has strenuously denied, to its treatment of foreign workers hired to complete a projected $200 billion overhaul of the country in time for the event.

Khelaifi becomes the first Qatari to face formal bribery allegations related to the tournament, and the Swiss attorney general’s statement is the first time details of beIN Group’s agreement to broadcast the 2026 and 2030 World Cups have been revealed. FIFA later on Thursday confirmed the contract. It announced in January 2011, about a month after Qatar was awarded 2022 hosting rights, that Al Jazeera Sport, the name beIN used previously, had been handed rights to broadcast that event and the 2018 World Cup in Russia across 23 territories and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Khelaifi, a close friend and occasional tennis partner of Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has grown in stature along with his country’s sporting ambitions. As chairman of the Paris St.-Germain soccer team, Khelaifi sent shock waves through the soccer industry over the summer by approving the signing of Brazil’s Neymar from Barcelona for 222 million euros (about $263 million), a fee that shattered the record amount paid for a transfer.

P.S.G. followed that by agreeing to a fee of as much as 180 million euros ($213 million) to secure the rights to Monaco’s teenage star Kylian Mbappé, an amount that, like Neymar’s fee, was more than double the previous record.

Those signings have set P.S.G. on a collision course with the European soccer body UEFA, which has insisted it will punish clubs that breach its cost control regulations.