By Andrew Warshaw
January 23 – Former FIFA Presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam’s campaign to stop the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) from replacing him as its leader was heard by sport’s highest court today.
Bin Hammam did not attend the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) hearing in Lausanne, and his American lawyer, Eugene Gulland, declined comment afterwards.
Bin Hammam was banned for life last year for his role in the cash-for-votes bribery scandal in the Caribbean .
He is appealing against the sentence, a date for which has not yet been fixed,but first wants a ruling that allows him to hang on to the Presidency of his confederation.
China’s Zhang Jilong has been running the AFC in bin Hammam’s absence as well as taking the seat on FIFA’s Executive Committee which Bin Hammam had held since 1996.
CAS arbitrator Denis Oswald (pictured), a member of the three-lawyer panel who is one of the most senior figures in world sport, said after the hearing that both sides made “good arguments”.
“We heard different submissions by the parties but they will supplement their overall submissions in writing, so we will have to wait a few more weeks until we have everything available,” said Oswald.
Oswald, who is from Switzerland, is a member of the International Olympic Committee, the President of FISA, the international rowing federation, and the man overseeing preparations for this year’s Olympics and Paralympics in London.
Under AFC statutes, an Extraordinary Congress and election must be held if Bin Hammam’s case is not settled by May 29, with Zhang almost certainly handed the AFC Presidency permanently from that date onwards.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter won the election unopposed last June, three days after Bin Hammam was suspended pending the lifetime ban handed down by the Ethics Committee.
A number of Caribbean officials were subsequently also sanctioned following claims they were offered $40,000 cash gifts to vote for bin Hammam while former FIFA senior vice-president Jack Warner, alleged to have orchestrated the infamous Trinidad meeting, resigned.
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