By Andrew Warshaw
September 15 – Mohamed Bin Hammam’s legal team confirmed today that his quest for justice in the wake of the infamous cash-for-votes scandal would be taken all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Within hours of his appeal against his life ban being turned down by a three-man FIFA Appeals Aommittee, London-based lawyers acting for the former head of the Asian Football Confederation said he was still determined to prove his innocence despite being found guilty of arranging to bribe Caribbean voters with $40,000 (£25,308/€28,880).
As usual, FIFA declined to make any comment after the appeal hearing except to announce the result and name Francisco Acosta of Ecuador as chairman of the committee, with Fernando Mitjans from Argentina and Augustin Senghor from Senegal as the other two members.
The verdict was widely anticipated, even by Bin Hammam himself who has long believed there is a conspiracy against him and that he would not receive justice from within the FIFA hierarchy.
“Mr Bin Hammam has already gone on record stating that he was not optimistic of justice prevailing from the FIFA appeals process but this was a protocol to enable him to obtain access to CAS,” said a statement from Eugene Gulland, the 62-year-old Qatari’s lawyer.
“History seems to bear him out as the FIFA appeals process has rarely interfered with the decisions of its football colleagues in other FIFA internal panels.
“We will therefore be taking our appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”
Bin Hammam was originally banned for life on July 23 for his role in allegedly offering cash bribes to Caribbean FIFA members in exchange for their votes in the FIFA presidential election.
He later withdrew his challenge to Sepp Blatter who ran unopposed.
Bin Hammam’s alleged partner in crime, former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner who was also charged, resigned from all footballing activities before having to face the ethics committee.
FIFA are meanwhile investigating the roles played by 16 Caribbean officials at the much publicised May meeting in Trinidad where the bribes were apparently offered just three weeks before the June 1 election.
Gulland revealed that his firm had brought a separate case before the CAS challenging the right of FIFA to designate Zhang Jilong of China as “acting President” of the Asian Football Confederation and appoint him to sit on the FIFA Executive Committee in Bin Hammam’s place.
“These decisions infringe the Asian Football Confederation’s constitution,” the statement said.
And Gulland called on FIFA to move quickly in sending out the full findings of the appeal and to publish the transcript in full.
“Let’s hope FIFA does not draw the issue of this by a further month, like the previous motivated decision, as we are keen to present our case to an independent body,” he said.
“We also continue to champion the need for transparency and call on FIFA to publish the transcripts of the appeals panel as well as that of the Ethics Committee proceedings in July.”
Bin Hammam himself later admitted on his personal website that the appeal process was just a mechanism to take the case further and that he could see “the light at the end of the tunnel”.
“A friend of the media asked me how I feel after the decision of the Appeal Committee,” he wrote.
“I replied, ‘somehow I feel relieved because for the last three months, I felt helpless and was sure that all the efforts, time and money I am spending was just a waste’.
“Of course, today’s outcome from the Appeal’s Committee was not unexpected or surprising.
“To be fair to the Appeal Committee members though, as a consequence of our experiences with the Ethics Committee, we didn’t make serious efforts to prove my innocence this time around.
“We even thought to write to FIFA to ‘skip’ the appeals procedure and to have a directly guilty verdict from the Appeal Committee in order for us to go directly to CAS.”
“Anyhow, I can now see, at last, light at the end of the tunnel and I am heading confidently towards it.
“My next step is to go to CAS where from now on, I will be equal to my rival.”
Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1732367088labto1732367088ofdlr1732367088owedi1732367088sni@w1732367088ahsra1732367088w.wer1732367088dna1732367088
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