By Andrew Warshaw
August 19 – Mohamed Bin Hammam’s efforts to clear his name hit the buffers once again today when the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) extended a provisional suspension of its former President by another 20 days while it continues to investigate allegations of financial wrongdoing when he was in charge.
The extension, announced by the chairman of the AFC Disciplinary Committee, Lim Kia Tong, and widely anticipated by the confederation’s heirarchy, came 24 hours before the AFC’s 30-day ban on Bin Hammam (pictured top) was due to expire.
The issue centres on claims made in an AFC-commissioned independent audit that Bin Hammam misused confederation funds during the period when he ran Asian football.
FIFA, world football’s governing body, quickly made the 30-day suspension applicable worldwide and seems certain to do likewise with the extension, especially as it has already banned Bin Hammam for 90 days while its new corruption buster, Michael Garcia (pictured below), looks into the audit which suggests serious mismanagement of AFC accounts and billion-dollar contracts by Bin Hammam.
Garcia is also seeking new evidence that, 15 months ago, Bin Hammam bribed Caribbean voters, handing them $40,000 (£25,400/€32,400) each in brown envelopes at a meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, a few weeks before he was due to challenge Sepp Blatter for the FIFA Presidency.
Bin Hammam, who withdrew his candidacy, was handed a lifetime ban for bribery over the cash-for-votes scandal, only for the ruling to be overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) last month.
Ever since he went from being a credible Presidential contender to being thrown out of football, Bin Hammam has persistently denied all the charges levelled against him, insisting they were politically motivated.
He is convinced there is a vendetta against him for taking the decision to stand against Blatter and last week said he would shortly announce further steps to challenge “this clear abuse of power and process at the hand of FIFA”.
The next three weeks could prove a significant period for the positions of all parties involved.
insideworldfootball understands the AFC is not permitted legally to keep extending the suspension of its former President and that a final ruling into whether or not Bin Hammam is culpable will have to be taken once the 20-day extension of his suspension expires.
Earlier this month, amid reports of a damaging split within the AFC, Zhang Jilong, who took over the AFC Presidency on a temporary basis after Bin Hammam was kicked out in the wake of the Trinidad and Tobago debacle, wrote to all 46 AFC member associations seeking their full cooperation in the ongoing investigation against the 63-year-old Qatari.
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