Bin Hammam and Warner suspended by FIFA over corruption allegations but Blatter free to contest election

By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich

May 29 – The gravest corruption scandal in the history of FIFA exploded into controversy tonight when Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner, the two figures at the centre of the affair, were provisionally suspended pending a full inquiry but Sepp Blatter was given the all-clear to stand unopposed for a fourth term as the organisation’s President.

At a one-hour news conference that at times erupted into near-chaos amid a barrage of random questioning, FIFA’s Ethics Committee ruled that Blatter had no case to answer and gave the 75-year-old Swiss – known as the “Great Survivor” – carte blanche to go it alone at the Presidential ballot on Wednesday (June 1).

The verdicts against Bin Hammam and Warner, long-standing members of FIFA’s all-powerful Executive Committee, were hardly unexpected given the amount of evidence against them, provided not by newspapers or British MPs but by one of FIFA’s own inner sanctum, the burly American Chuck Blazer.

So sure of his facts was Blazer that two of his fellow Executive committee members had broken the rules by offering or actually paying $40,000 (£24,000) bribes to Caribbean members at an unscheduled meeting on May 10-11 to discuss Bin Hammam’s campaign to replace Blatter as President that he hired a law firm to draw up the evidence and then presented it to FIFA’s Ethics Committee.

It seemed almost inevitable, despite their protests to the contrary, that Bin Hammam and Warner, respectively head of Asian football and the Confederation covering North and Central America and the Caribbean, would be thrown out, albeit temporarily.

“Some individuals alleged that money was paid as an inducement to support Mr Bin Hammam’s candidacy, facilitated by Jack Warner,” said Petrus Damaseb, the Namibian judge who is the deputy chairman of the Ethics Committee.

“The Committee concluded that the implicated officials must be temporarily excluded from active participation in football activities.”

Demaseb estimated that the cases involving Bin Hammam and Warner would be concluded in July and although they will both now have the opportunity to draw up a more lengthy defence of their conduct, the omens do not look good.

The last time FIFA suspended two of their own, Reynald Temarii of Tahiti and Amos Adamu of Nigeria – caught up in the cash-for-votes scandal over World Cup bids – they ended up with even more severe sentences.

While Warner and Bin Hammam, who had withdrawn from the Presidential race a few hours before facing the Ethics Committee, will now be conspicuous by their absence at this week’s FIFA Congress and election, Blatter will be elected unopposed – unless three-quarters of FIFA’s 208 member nations demand the ballot be called off.

Damaseb and FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke (pictured) were bombarded with questions about why Blatter was allowed to walk away when he apparently knew there was a plan for payments to be made at the Trinidad meeting.

Bin Hammam, who asked for Blatter to be added to the probe, thought that was enough to bring down the FIFA President as well but the five-strong Ethics Committee disagreed.

“The Committee was satisfied that even assuming he had been told, there was no duty on his part to report because there was no breach at that stage,” said Damaseb.

In other words, how could someone report a crime before it had actually been committed.

Damaseb insisted the timing of the hearing had nothing to do with the election and rejected accusations of political engineering.

“The timing of our involvement at the moment, the trigger for our involvement, are the statutes of FIFA,” he said.

“No investigation against Blatter is warranted.”

The decision to absolve Blatter, who has at times rightly been attacked for doing little or nothing to rid FIFA of corruption, was given even more credence by the fact that Warner said no conversation about the Trinidad payments ever took place – in other words totally contradicting Bin Hammam’s version of events.

Valcke was pressed on numerous occasions about the fairness of the election going ahead with only one candidate and whether Blatter had once again wriggled through the net of culpability.

“Why should we postpone it?” Valcke asked.

“Are you saying there should be another candidate to be the President and not Sepp Blatter?

“If you are asking me, ‘Am I happy to see mr Blatter re-elected?’

“The answer is, ‘Yes I am’.”

Blatter issued the briefest of statements, clearly wishing to keep his comments to the minimum.

“The FIFA Ethics Committee has reached its decisions,” he said.

“I do not wish to comment in detail.

“But simply to say that I regret what has happened in the last few days and weeks.

“FIFA’s image has suffered a great deal as a result, much to the disappointment of FIFA itself and all football fans.”

There was also another twist when it was revealed that the Puerto Rico FA had emailed FIFA straight after the Ethics Committee had finished the hearing to confirm he was present at the Trinidad meeting and received a gift of $40,000 (£24,000) from Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials.

It made for an unsavoury end to the hearing and Valcke admitted the reputation of FIFA had taken arguably its biggest hit.

“It’s sad,” he said.

“Definitely there is a need for change.

“I’m not a FIFA President so he is the one who must decided what he wants to do and FIFA must make the necessary changes so that the institution has
systems in place to avoid that something like this happens again.

“This is the pattern of the work which we have to do very juickly in the next months: to change what has to be changed and put in place a number of systems to make sure that the Presidential election also comes under a number of rules.”

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