FIFA Executive Committee member launches legal action against Sunday Times

By Andrew Warshaw

November 14 – One of the two FIFA officials under investigation over World Cup bribery claims is taking legal action against the Sunday Times as he waits to be told whether he face further sanctions from the top table of world football.

Tahiti’s Reynald Temarii (pictured with Sepp Blatter), temporarily suspended from the FIFA Executive Committee along with Amos Adamu of Nigeria pending an Ethics Committee hearing on Wednesday (November 17), still insists he has done nothing wrong and, as a result, has instructed his lawyers to start·proceedings against the newspaper.

The 43-year-old one-time professional football who heads the Oceania Confederation is confident he will be re-instated rather than be punished for even longer.

In the meantime, he says he had no choice but to hire a legal team to help clear his name.·

“On my behalf, my lawyers instigated defamation proceedings against the Sunday Times in London on November 4th,”·Temarii wrote in an email to insideworldfootball after being asked a series of questions.·

“Also, I fully intend to engage legal actions against all that were accomplices of the situation that I have experienced since the article was published on October 17th, 2010 to restore my integrity and my honour.”

Other Executive Committee members have hinted privately that FIFA are almost certain to make examples of both Temarii and Adamu – or certainly one of them – and stop them voting on December 2 for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.

But Temarii says is not prepared to become a sacrificial lamb after making headlines for all the wrong reasons when an undercover reporting team posing as a United States consortium claimed he and Adamu were ready to take bribes in exchange for their votes.

Temarii is basing his case in part on his assertion that incriminatory video clips lasting just over four minutes grossly manipulated the full 98-minute meeting by suggesting he would sell his votes to fund a soccer academy in New Zealand.

“I am confident that I will vote on dec 2 ,” Temarii declared.

“I never sold my vote and never even had the intention to.

They edited videos of interviews to suggest I’d sell my votes to fund a football academy.”

So serious is FIFA President Sepp Blatter treating the corruption allegations that he has called an emergency meeting of his executive committee for Friday (November 19), two days after the Ethics Committee’s decision, to consider how to proceed if only 22 FIFA members end up casting their votes in the two secret World Cup ballots.

Temarii says he should be allowed back if there any justice.

“I am fully confident and assured of my integrity and good faith,” said Temarii.

“I will ask the FIFA Ethics Committee to allow me to present all my evidence while caring for the respect of all my rights.

“If the investment from the consortium of US Companies to build a Regional Football Academy in Auckland was solely to induce me to vote for the US bid, then I adamantly rejected to them any financial offer presented in return of my vote.

“My actions before and after the meeting and the statements I made during the interview clearly show that I have not breached with any FIFA rules.

“As a result, the advice I received from my lawyers..and the evidence produced at the FIFA Ethics Committee will exonerate me from these charges.”

The Ethics Committee will also rule Wednesday on claims that Spain-Portugal and Qatar broke strict bidding rules by striking a vote-trading alliance allegedly involving seven FIFA voters.

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