By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
September 23 – One of Qatar’s highest-ranking officials is persuing his bid to join FIFA’s inner circle, despite having a FIFA ethics investigation recommending a two-year ban imposed on him and a verdict on his proposed sanction still to be handed down.
Insideworldfootball understands that Qatari FA vice-president Saoud Al-Mohannadi has not withdrawn his candidacy for next week’s Asian Football Confederation elections to choose the region’s representatives on the new-look FIFA Council.
The two-year recommendation by ethics investigators has raised speculation that once again the FIFA ethics system is being manipulated into interfering with confederation politics – as it most recently did in the CONCACAF region with the election of its new president Victor Montagliani.
A widely held view amongst insiders is that forces that have nothing to do with Asia are working to get their ‘own’ people on to the FIFA Council. Al-Mohannadi, who is a favourite for election to the FIFA Council, is not that preferred choice. The Iranian or Singaporean candidate (both countries are believed to have voted for Gianni Infantino in the FIFA presidential election) would more likely be the FIFA mandarins’ preferred choice.
The new ‘reformed’ FIFA appears to be developing a disturbing track record of using its ethics process for seemingly political objectives, particularly following the scrapping of the process of independently appointed ethics executives, if only for a year.
Evidence pointing to ethics’ use as a political tool was certainly the case in the CONCACAF region where Caribbean Football Union president Gordon Derrick was ruled out of standing for the CONCACAF presidency (he was a clear favourite to win the election) by FIFA on the basis he could not take a place on the FIFA Council. FIFA, along with new CONCACAF president Montagliani, later supported a rival candidate against Derrick in his re-election to the CFU presidency.
Al-Mohannadi is vying with three other male candidates to run for the two new Asian seats at FIFA. But he has been charged with an alleged violation of art. 13 (General rules of conduct), art. 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting) and art. 42 (General obligation to collaborate) of the FIFA Code of Ethics. His actual offence is not detailed though there is some speculation as to whether any offence has actually been committed.
Ethics investigators recommended he be banned from the game for at least two years for failing “to properly cooperate and provide truthful information to the investigatory chamber in the framework of another investigation.”
The case had nothing to do with Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid and until FIFA’s Adjudicatory Chamber makes its decision Al-Mohannadi is presumed innocent.
The other three male candidates are China’s Zhang Jian, Iranian Ali Kafashian Naeni and Singapore FA president Zainudin Nordin. Zhang looks a strong favourite to grab one of the positions given that China lost its place on the old executive committee after Zhang Jilong stepped down as interim president of the AFC following the election in 2013 of Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa.
As far as the AFC’s one female seat on the FIFA council is concerned, momentum on social media sites appears to be shifting towards Australia’s Moya Dodd who is taking on Mahfuza Ahkter of Bangladesh and Han Un Gyong of North Korea.
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