By Andrew Warshaw
September 11 – FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon is back on the offensive over his claim that his own Asian confederation is guilty of “electoral fraud” in the race to succeed Sepp Blatter, this time all but accusing FIFA, which has refused to support his allegations, of a cover-up.
Chung recently accused the Asian Football Confederation of breaking both electoral and ethical rules by sending unsolicited written template forms to Asian members calling on them to follow the party line by voting for Michel Platini at the election in February.
Chung says efforts to influence Asian countries undermines the fairness of the poll in direct violation of FIFA statutes , represents underhand tactics and officially complained to FIFA’s Ad-hoc Electoral Committee and its Ethics Committee, with a copy of the said form.
The AFC quickly responded by insisting it had broken no moral codes of conduct whatsoever and that it was perfectly normal procedure for confederations to provide guidance to its federations. FIFA subsequently informed Chung in a September 3 letter that it could not find anything wrong with the AFC’s activities.
But Chung has now hardened his accusations, claiming AFC staff made private phone calls to individual member associations to check whether they had sent in the completed form letters to FIFA – and accused Fifa of breaking its own moral code.
“A thorough review of the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee’s letter and AFC’s statement shows that the committee hastily concluded its inquiries into this critical incident in mere three days citing lack of evidence without an in-depth investigation of relevant persons involved. We object to this conclusion in the strongest possible terms,” Chung said in a press release issued by his office.
FIFA has so far not commented officially on the matter but Chung said the stance taken by the three-man electoral committee, headed Domineco Scala, was a dereliction of duty.
“Even though it has been verified that AFC systematically distributed form letters in support of Mr. Platini, the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee did not even look into the possibility of a coordination between AFC and Mr. Platini, arguing that the committee only has jurisdiction over presidential candidates’ activities and thus could not interfere in AFC’s activities. This is tantamount to voluntarily forfeiting the committee’s duty to ensure the fairness of the election for FIFA President.”
“We believe that AFC sending form letters containing Mr. Platini’s initials, MP, to its member associations while urging support for Mr. Platini clearly violates FIFA Statutes and Electoral Regulations. Therefore, we urge the Ad-hoc Electoral Committee, once again, to promptly take the following three actions:
(1) Refer this case to the Investigatory Chamber of the Ethics Committee in accordance with FIFA Electoral Regulations,
(2) Conduct a thorough investigation to see if AFC President Sheikh Salman, UEFA President and FIFA Presidential Candidate Michel Platini, and officials at CAF and other Confederations plotted this incident together,
(3) Take immediate measures to nullify any “support” for the candidature of Platini received through the form letters sent by AFC, the Vice President of CAF and/or any other Confederation.
We would like to once again point out that the FIFA Ad-hoc Electoral Committee reaching a hasty conclusion without having conducted a thorough investigation of relevant facts and parties, will be regarded as being tantamount to covering up an election fraud.”
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