By Andrew Warshaw
July 19 – Former Asian football supremo Mohamed Bin Hammam had his lifetime ban by FIFA sensationally annulled today when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), sport’s highest legal channel, upheld his appeal by ruling there was insufficient evidence against him.
A year ago FIFA’s Ethics Committee imposed the ban on the former head of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) over the cash-for-votes scandal in Trinidad in May 2011 when he was alleged to have paid bribes to Caribbean members in exchange for votes in the FIFA Presidential election that followed a few weeks later.
Bin Hammam (pictured above) withdrew his candidature against Sepp Blatter who subsequently ran for office alone and was elected for a fourth term.
In the meantime, former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner (pictured below, left with Bin Hammam), who was alleged to have set up the Trinidad and Tobago meeting, resigned from all footballing activities rather than face the Ethics Committee.
A number of Caribbean officials were subsequently sanctioned after it was alleged that cash-stuffed envelopes containing up to $40,000 (£25,000/€33,000) were handed to delegates during the meeting in Port of Spain.
A FIFA report said there was “comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming” evidence that bribes had been paid to officials to support Bin Hammam’s campaign for the Presidency, and that Warner had facilitated this.
But Bin Hammam has always claimed he did nothing wrong and took his case to the CAS which met in April and delivered its verdict today.
As part of today’s ruling, the CAS made it clear that FIFA can bring new proceedings against Bin Hammam if its revamped two-chamber Ethics Committee, the chairmen of which were ironically named on Tuesday (July 17) by FIFA’s Executive Committee to look into past and future corruption, finds any fresh evidence.
Quite where this leaves Bin Hammam is open to question.
Only this week he was provisionally suspended for 30 days by the AFC following an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers that centred on contract negotiations and payments to and from AFC bank accounts during Bin Hammam’s Presidency.
The 62-year-old Qatari was alleged to have breached a number of AFC regulations including relating to gifts and bribery.
Sources close to Bin Hammam say the allegations were simply a further attempt to tarnish his name but others within the AFC paint a different story, pointing out that the CAS verdict was announced a week before schedule at a time when the AFC were holding its Executive Committee meeting, designed to cause maximum awkwardness.
In its statement, the CAS said it had “upheld Mr Bin Hammam’s appeal, annulled the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee and lifted the life ban imposed on Mr Bin Hammam.”
The CAS panel composed of José Maria Alonso, Philippe Sands and Romano Subiotto, who “after thorough deliberations and on the basis of the evidence before it, was unable to conclude to its comfortable satisfaction that the charges against Mr Bin Hammam were established”, voted 2-1 to annul the lifetime ban pending more evidence being presented.
However culpable Bin Hammam was or wasn’t, however – and the CAS report points out that “it is more likely than not” he was the source of monies – it is highly questionable whether FIFA will be to come up with anything more to throw at him, heaping embarrassment on Blatter (pictured above, right) just when he trying so desperately to restore the organisation’s credibility.
The full CAS statement can be read here.
Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1732389399labto1732389399ofdlr1732389399owedi1732389399sni@w1732389399ahsra1732389399w.wer1732389399dna1732389399
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