FIFA suspends six officials after World Cup bid corruption probe

[News_Editor]

FIFA suspends six officials after World Cup bid corruption probe

2010-11-18 21:41:20 GMT+7 (ICT)

ZÜRICH, SWITZERLAND (BNO NEWS) -- The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) on Thursday announced that its Ethics Committee banned six football officials from taking part in any football-related activity from one to four years, after breaching "various articles of the FIFA Code of Ethics" following a corruption probe.

The ban includes two FIFA Executive Committee members, Nigeria's Amos Adamu and Tahiti's Reynald Temarii (FIFA vice-president). They will be unable to participate in the voting that will decide the World Cup's host for the 2018 and 2022 editions.

Adamu was suspended for three years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,120), while Temarii was suspended for one year and fined 5,000 Swiss francs ($5,043).

FIFA had opened proceedings against the two Executive Committee members on October 18 and had requested the Ethics Committee to conduct an independent, in-depth investigation into the matter.

The investigation comes after undercover reporters with the Sunday Times of London newspaper filmed Adamu and Remarii participating in bribing talks. According to the newspaper's allegations, the committee members were willing to exchange their votes for offers to fund projects in their native countries.

In addition, four other officials involved in the investigation were suspended, Tunisia's Slim Aloulou, banned two years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs; Tonga's Ahongalu Fusimalohi, banned three years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs; Mali's Amadou Diakite, banned three years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs; and Botswana's Ismael Bhamjee, banned four years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs.

However, the Ethics Committee said it did not find "enough evidence of a violation of the Bid Registration document and the Code of Ethics" in regard to the alleged agreements between member associations and their Bid Committees for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process.

The decisions were taken under the chairmanship of Claudio Sulser and in a panel, which is also composed of five international officials, after a three-day meeting of the Ethics Committee held in Zurich.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2010-11-18

[asiawatcher]

Was Thaksin involved?

[StevieH]

typically staggering brassneck from fifa here. convict and suspend six of its own officials for corruption and then publicly criticise as 'sensationalist' the newspaper investigation which exposed them.

sort of 'well yes, we know we're bent but you're not supposed to investigate us. . . .'

[salty]

The tip of the iceberg.

[carmine]

FIFA , Sepp Blatter. What does anybody expect, and yes salty, tip of the iceburg.

[salty]

In 2018 it will be 52 years since England hosted the World Cup. As one of the leading football countries in terms of interest world wide it's a no brainer they should be awarded the competition.

If FIFA do not like the way English media have highlighted the corruption in the organisation who knows how this could effect the voting. Now I believe David Cameron has invited the obnoxious Jack Warner to 10 Downing Street in an effort to reinforce the English bid. I think this is an appalling scenario. Surely someone should be telling the FA and your PM if you sup with the devil you need a long spoon.

If England do not get the competition they should tell FIFA where to stick it.

[StevieH]

In 2018 it will be 52 years since England hosted the World Cup. As one of the leading football countries in terms of interest world wide it's a no brainer they should be awarded the competition.

If FIFA do not like the way English media have highlighted the corruption in the organisation who knows how this could effect the voting. Now I believe David Cameron has invited the obnoxious Jack Warner to 10 Downing Street in an effort to reinforce the English bid. I think this is an appalling scenario. Surely someone should be telling the FA and your PM if you sup with the devil you need a long spoon.

If England do not get the competition they should tell FIFA where to stick it.

yeah, it's totally fair comment this. fifa is bent, everyone knows it, it's then proven, so cameron invites probably the most bent of the lot to tea and cakes.

even though it probably is england's 'turn' to host, it would be nice to see a country stand up to fifa and tell them to poke their corrupt, money-spinning circus up their collective hoop.

[smokie36]

In 2018 it will be 52 years since England hosted the World Cup. As one of the leading football countries in terms of interest world wide it's a no brainer they should be awarded the competition.

If FIFA do not like the way English media have highlighted the corruption in the organisation who knows how this could effect the voting. Now I believe David Cameron has invited the obnoxious Jack Warner to 10 Downing Street in an effort to reinforce the English bid. I think this is an appalling scenario. Surely someone should be telling the FA and your PM if you sup with the devil you need a long spoon.

If England do not get the competition they should tell FIFA where to stick it.

Apparently GIFA criticised England's lack of hotel spaces.

Laughable. England could host a World Cup next week if it were called upon.

They are a joke really.

[AndyFarang]

too little, too late, one of the most corrupt institutes in the world, answerable to nobody, least of all the fans!

For more info, this website is worth reading and posting for others to see what goes on

http://transparencyinsport.org/

[salty]

Terrific read Andy. Warner is shown as a nasty foul mouthed individual and also a racist.

[salty]

http://www.worldsoccer.com/glanville/

[StevieH]

i will be gobsmacked if england gets the world cup 2018. if it doesn't go to spain or russia i will be genuinely amazed.

[StevieH]

this is worth a listen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/5lfd

didn't realise lord triesman had walked in as chairman and sacked everyone, including the bloke who was formerly special adviser to sepp blatter and the guy formulating the england bid's strategy.

[salty]

Re tonights panorama programme

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11841783

[smokie36]

Re tonights panorama programme

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11841783

Regarding this excellent programme last night.......exposed the FIFA committee for what they are....the previous chairman...Blatter....three more of Thursday's voting panel.....all declined to answer why they received millions of dollars from the Swiss company.

Better the world boots these cnuts out and starts a new football cup. Utterly corrupt from the very top. Only question for me is how much longer will they get away with it?

[smokie36]

In fact to see an England delegation of basically honest and principled vlokes go cap in hand to these people should make anyone feel ill.

England should withdraw their bid....anyway they won't win now....FIFA won't want any more exposure like last night.....

[StevieH]

Regarding this excellent programme last night.......exposed the FIFA committee for what they are....the previous chairman...Blatter....three more of Thursday's voting panel.....all declined to answer why they received millions of dollars from the Swiss company.

Better the world boots these cnuts out and starts a new football cup. Utterly corrupt from the very top. Only question for me is how much longer will they get away with it?

quis custodiet ipsos custodes? there is simply nobody to police fifa. they're a registered charity headquartered in switzerland and i imagine they own all the relevant copyrights and patents around a soccer world cup. i'm not sure how you really bring them down to be honest because it's almost impossible to establish who they are answerable to apart from themselves.

[smokie36]

Regarding this excellent programme last night.......exposed the FIFA committee for what they are....the previous chairman...Blatter....three more of Thursday's voting panel.....all declined to answer why they received millions of dollars from the Swiss company.

Better the world boots these cnuts out and starts a new football cup. Utterly corrupt from the very top. Only question for me is how much longer will they get away with it?

quis custodiet ipsos custodes? there is simply nobody to police fifa. they're a registered charity headquartered in switzerland and i imagine they own all the relevant copyrights and patents around a soccer world cup. i'm not sure how you really bring them down to be honest because it's almost impossible to establish who they are answerable to apart from themselves.

Well someone somewhere regulates registered charities in Switzerland.....probably from a yacht somewhere though.....sponsored by who knows what......mind boggling levels of corruption.....and quite blatant as well.

[StevieH]

Regarding this excellent programme last night.......exposed the FIFA committee for what they are....the previous chairman...Blatter....three more of Thursday's voting panel.....all declined to answer why they received millions of dollars from the Swiss company.

Better the world boots these cnuts out and starts a new football cup. Utterly corrupt from the very top. Only question for me is how much longer will they get away with it?

quis custodiet ipsos custodes? there is simply nobody to police fifa. they're a registered charity headquartered in switzerland and i imagine they own all the relevant copyrights and patents around a soccer world cup. i'm not sure how you really bring them down to be honest because it's almost impossible to establish who they are answerable to apart from themselves.

Well someone somewhere regulates registered charities in Switzerland.....probably from a yacht somewhere though.....sponsored by who knows what......mind boggling levels of corruption.....and quite blatant as well.

given the levels of regulation and accountability that switzerland applies to banks and financial houses i reckon their charity rules and regulations are probably written on a ripped up toblerone wrapper.

[salty]

BRIAN GLANVILLE

writes for worldsoccer.com each week.

BEGGING FOR VOTES

30/11/10

The best news to emerge from Zurich at the FIFA World Cup venue choosing meeting was the possibility that a breakaway Football Federation might be formed to release the honest member countries from that sink of iniquity.

Panorama’s programme, though assailed by England’s bid representatives as a threat to their campaign, was surely both apposite and significant. Yes, as had been previously claimed, some of it was old hat: the ticket manipulations of the ineffable Jack Warner of Trinidad included.

But to have three leading members of the venue choosing committee, Richardo Texeira of Brazil, Havelange’s son-in-law if I am not mistaken, and a controversial figure in the past, Issa Hayatou of Cameroon (a challenger for the FIFA presidency back in 2002) and Paraguay’s Nicolas Leoz so abominably bang to rights shows FIFA as a body to be beyond redemption. Between the three of they, they are accused of embezzling £64 million.

That our Prime Minister David Cameron should be reduced to begging favours from Jack Warner is in itself shaming in the extreme. Of the other bidders, I suppose the fact that Russia, as shocking day to day reports tell us all too graphically, is now virtually a gangster regime in which its dissidents, whether journalistic or commercial, go in peril of their lives: or of having their bones broken is irrelevant. But China, which held the last Olympics, is after all a notoriously repressive anti democratic state.

More to the point in Russia’s case is the fact that racism is rife, spectator violence all too prevalent. FIFA shamelessly have ignored racism as a factor of choice, despite their much trumpeted but hollow, meaningless, Kick Out Racism campaign. In the 1920s, the British countries withdrew from FIFA twice over shamateurism. When it was founded in 1904 they didn’t take part at all. The stench which arises from FIFA’s grand palace in Zurich is beyond removal. And the World Cup, in any case, has since Havelange, been progressively bloated into a top-heavy incubus.

The horror of our Prime Minister going to Zurich to beg favours from the egregious and emetic Jack Warner of Trinidad also evolves a bizarre mystery. As that shrewd columnist Martin Samuel demanded, what in the name of financial logic were Portugal, due to go bust any day, and Spain, in severe danger of following them with an even bigger bust, doing as candidates to put on the 2018 World Cup Finals?

***************

[spongeman]

I have a feeling that England will get shafted tomorrow, in favour of Spain.

[salty]

I have a feeling that England will get shafted tomorrow, in favour of Spain.

spongeman,

Correct except in favour of Russia.

Maybe we might have applied ourselves if Bertie was still in control. Can you just imagine Blatter and Co at the Galway Races?

[spongeman]

I have a feeling that England will get shafted tomorrow, in favour of Spain.

spongeman,

Correct except in favour of Russia.

Maybe we might have applied ourselves if Bertie was still in control. Can you just imagine Blatter and Co at the Galway Races?

Salty I think that Ireland should put in a bid for EURO 2020 ! The IMF could fund it !

Blatter and Bertie , theres 2 peas in a pod ( Corruption wise I mean )

[nickgonewalkabout]

Hey Stevie: seems like you've changed your tune since the World Cup. You remember our conversation about FIFA corruption back then? Bad calls. Pro-Brazilian and Anti-English sentiment, stuff like that?. You were keen to defend FIFA. Now you come out telling us FIFA's bent and everyone knows it. Well, I'm glad you understand...finally. This has been going on for donkeys and goes from the very top to the very bottom of the organisation, and in the games we watched last summer, and in FIFA's disconnection of the satellite signal to 5 million Thai viewers after the first two rounds this past June. It doesn't take much to upset the top brass (a bit like some people on this forum) and once you incur the wrath of FIFA....well the BBC doco paints a pretty good picture on what happens. FIFA needs to be replaced with a totally new organisation. What do you say about the FA running a world championship? Be a tough job getting the South Americans on-board since thats where FIFA is most powerful. But offer them money and they'll come. What about a FIFA boycott?. You think that would bring them around?

[StevieH]

Hey Stevie: seems like you've changed your tune since the World Cup. You remember our conversation about FIFA corruption back then? Bad calls. Pro-Brazilian and Anti-English sentiment, stuff like that?. You were keen to defend FIFA. Now you come out telling us FIFA's bent and everyone knows it. Well, I'm glad you understand...finally. This has been going on for donkeys and goes from the very top to the very bottom of the organisation, and in the games we watched last summer, and in FIFA's disconnection of the satellite signal to 5 million Thai viewers after the first two rounds this past June. It doesn't take much to upset the top brass (a bit like some people on this forum) and once you incur the wrath of FIFA....well the BBC doco paints a pretty good picture on what happens. FIFA needs to be replaced with a totally new organisation. What do you say about the FA running a world championship? Be a tough job getting the South Americans on-board since thats where FIFA is most powerful. But offer them money and they'll come. What about a FIFA boycott?. You think that would bring them around?

sorry, you sure you're not mixing me up with someone else? me defending fifa? i might have been anti-FA but think i'm unlikely to have been particularly pro-fifa.