FIFA suspended President Sepp Blatter's right-hand man Jerome Valcke on Thursday, September 17, and ordered an investigation into alleged unethical conduct, throwing world soccer's scandal-scarred governing body into further turmoil, the Associated Press reports.

Valcke, FIFA's secretary general for the past eight years under the embattled Blatter, was hours earlier the subject of allegations over a deal for black market sales of tickets to 2014 World Cup matches.

"FIFA today announced that its Secretary General Jerome Valcke has been put on leave and released from his duties effective immediately until further notice," the governing body said in a brief statement which did not specify details.

"Further, FIFA has been made aware of a series of allegations involving the secretary general and has requested a formal investigation by the FIFA Ethics Committee."

A call to Valcke's mobile phone was not answered late Thursday. It was unclear if he was already in Russia where the 1,000-day countdown to the 2018 World Cup kickoff is being marked Friday in Red Square, Moscow.

Valcke is scheduled to leave FIFA at the end of February with Blatter, and has acknowledged that the next FIFA president should appoint his own secretary general to have a fresh start for a new administration.