FIFA'S ethics committee has cleared its president Sepp Blatter in a bribery investigation and left the way clear for him to be re-elected as the head of world football unopposed for a fourth four-year term.
Executive members Jack Warner and Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was due to stand against Mr Blatter until he withdrew from the presidential race in the early hours of yesterday morning, were provisionally suspended yesterday pending further investigation.
Football’s governing body will now open a full probe into allegations that financial incentives were offered to members of the Caribbean Football Union.
CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester have also been suspended.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke confirmed the presidential election would go ahead on Wednesday with Mr Blatter, 75, standing unopposed.
“The committee concluded that the implicated officials must be temporarily excluded from active participation in football activities,” ethics committee deputy chairman Petrus Damaseb said.
Mr Blatter said in a statement: “I do not wish to comment in detail, but simply to say that I regret what has happened in the last few days and weeks. Fifa’s image has suffered a great deal as a result.”
UK Sports Minister Hugh Robertson called on Fifa to be more “transparent and accountable”, but ruled out the idea of the English Football Association quitting world football’s governing body.
In 2002, Mr Blatter, who is Swiss, fought and beat claims made against him in the lead up to Fifa presidential elections in Seoul when he was elected for a second four-year term.
Fifa’s then general secretary Michel Zen-Ruffinen had compiled a 30-page dossier claiming Mr Blatter was guilty of corruption and mismanagement. However, Mr Blatter was cleared of any criminal misconduct by Zurich prosecutors. In 2003, Farah Addo, president of the Somali Football Association who claimed he was offered $100,000 (£61,000) to vote for Blatter, was suspended from soccer’s world governing body for two years. Fifa’s disciplinary commission said at the time he had failed to prove his allegations.
The latest allegations concern a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union between May 10 and 11 in Port of Spain, attended by Mr Warner and Mr Bin Hammam and Caribbean soccer officials.
Mr Bin Hammam, from Qatar, and Mr Warner are accused of handing over bundles of cash, each of £24,000, to officials in Trinidad earlier this month.
“Some individuals alleged money was paid as an inducement to support Mr Bin Hammam’s candidacy, facilitated by Jack Warner,” said Mr Damaseb.
Mr Blatter was interrogated at Mr Bin Hammam’s request over whether he knew about payments, Fifa said, but Mr Damaseb said no wrongdoing had been found.
“The committee was satisfied that even assuming he had been told, there was no duty on his part to report because there was no breach at that stage.”
Mr Damaseb said the timing of the hearing had nothing to do with the election. “The timing of our involvement at the moment, the trigger for our involvement, are the statutes of Fifa,” he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article