FIFA suspends Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for 90 days

[Jonathan Fairfield]

FIFA suspends Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for 90 days

ZURICH (AP) — FIFA has provisionally banned President Sepp Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini for 90 days in the wake of a Swiss criminal investigation.

The move by the FIFA ethics committee further taints Blatter's 40-year career at FIFA, including 17 years as president. It also damages the hopes of Platini to replace Blatter in the February election.

Swiss authorities turned up at Blatter's office at FIFA headquarters last month and interrogated him. The criminal case centers on Blatter allegedly misusing FIFA money by making a $2 million payment to Platini, who was questioned as a witness.

Blatter was also questioned by Swiss investigators about broadcasting contracts sold to former FIFA vice president Jack Warner in 2005 that were supposedly undervalued.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-10-08

[delgarcon]

At last!

[webfact]

Blatter and Platini banned for 90 days by FIFA ethics committee



ZURICH: -- The house of football is crumbling. That was the reaction of one analyst to the news FIFA President Sepp Blatter and UEFA chief Michel Platini have both been provisionally banned for 90 days.

The ruling by the world governing body’s ethics committee bars the two from any football-related activity. FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has also been banned for 90 days and presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon for six years and fined 10,000 Swiss francs.

The move comes in the wake of the ethics committee’s inquiry into the 1.40 million euro payment Platini received in 2011 for consultancy work he did for Blatter nine years earlier.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-10-09

[OnTheRun]

FIFA are organised crime on a grand scale. The sooner the whole organisation is ripped apart from top to bottom the better. The voting system needs to be overhauled also to prevent similar happening in the future.

[carmine]

I'm really hoping this will be the beginning of the end for Platini. With him as favorite to succeed Blatter it always felt to me an air of "here we go again".

Whilst its great to see important sponsors turning on Blatter its both sad and worrying for the game that it took this long. As it is for those key european nations still backing the Qatar debacle.

[jellydog]

Its like trying to dismantle La Cosa Nostra.

[smokie36]

Its like trying to dismantle La Cosa Nostra.

Dont try to be clever with us Pancho Villa.

You around for a custard pie fight this Xmas?

[jellydog]

Its like trying to dismantle La Cosa Nostra.

Dont try to be clever with us Pancho Villa.

You around for a custard pie fight this Xmas?

I will be indeed Smokie ! Bedded down in BKK. Let's get together and I'd like to meet other wastrels if possible.

[smokie36]

Its like trying to dismantle La Cosa Nostra.

Dont try to be clever with us Pancho Villa.

You around for a custard pie fight this Xmas?

I will be indeed Smokie ! Bedded down in BKK. Let's get together and I'd like to meet other wastrels if possible.

I'm around for a few months so no probs mate.

[StevieH]

thailand's blokey has been done as well.

Thailand FA president Worawi Makudi gets 90-day football suspension

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/oct/12/fifa-worawi-makudi-thailand-suspended-90-days

• Fifa takes action over an alleged breach of its code of ethics

• Former Fifa executive committee member plans to appeal immediately

Worawi Makudi, the president of the Football Association of Thailand and a former member of Fifa’s executive committee, has been suspended by Fifa’s ethics committee from all football activities for 90 days. In a brief statement which did not reveal details, the ethics committee said the suspension was “on the grounds that a breach of [Fifa’s] code of ethics appears to have been committed”.

Makudi becomes the ninth of Fifa’s 24 executive committee members before the December 2010 vote for the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to have since been either banned or suspended following misconduct allegations. Two more, Nicolás Leoz of Paraguay and Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, resigned before being exposed for having taken bribes.

The former FA chairman Lord Triesman alleged under parliamentary privilege that during England’s 2018 bid Makudi personally asked for the TV rights of a friendly Thailand and England were negotiating to play. An FA report by the barrister James Dingemans QC did not uphold that allegation but found the FA was negotiating to keep only the UK rights for the game, and give the Thai FA worldwide rights, rather than only the domestic rights in Thailand, which would have been normal.

A lawyer acting for Makudi has said he will immediately appeal. Football Association of Thailand lawyer, Narinpong Jinapak, issued a statement saying FIFA’s order was not final and an appeal would be sent immediately.

“I have no idea why Fifa issued such suspension order which relatively defames my reputation,” Worawi was quoted as saying in Thai newspapers. “I will have the legal team send a petition to Fifa immediately under my rights. According to Thai laws, this case is not final. I’m still entitled to do local activities.”

Fifa’s president Sepp Blatter said in 2011 that “there are no elements in this report which would prompt any proceedings” by Fifa’s ethics committee, and Jerome Valcke, the organisation’s secretary-general, said the executive committee members named in it had come out “completely clean”. However, the Dingemans report was subsequently followed up by the former US prosecutor Michael Garcia, in his ethics committee inquiry into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process. The summary of Garcia’s report by Hans-Joachim Eckert, the chairman of the “adjudicatory,” sanctions-setting branch of the ethics committee, stated that in fact there were “ample” grounds for investigation of wrongdoing.

“Information compiled in the Dingemans investigation and supplemented during the [ethics committee’s] own inquiry established a prima facie case that serious violations of bidding rules and the Fifa code of ethics have occurred in the contexts concerned,” Eckert’s summary stated.

Eckert said three of the four Fifa executive committee members concerned in the Dingemans report had “made improper requests for support or favors [sic] towards the England 2018 bid team and/or the FA during the bidding process.”

The report dealt with allegations about requests made by Makudi, Jack Warner of Trinidad, Leoz and Teixeira. Eckert said the Dingemans report “presented ample evidence with respect to certain allegations to warrant the initiation of Fifa ethics committee proceedings against selected individuals.” However it did not specify which three of the four executive committee members it was referring to. The investigation of Makudi by the ethics committee did follow the Garcia report.

Makudi was a Fifa executive committee member for 18 years until May this year. In July, he was found guilty of forgery in his 2013 re-election bid to lead the Thai football association. A Bangkok criminal court sentenced him to a suspended jail term of one year and four months. Makudi has said he will appeal.

[meatboy]

makes you think HOW many are in his pocket toooooooooooo last this long.

[Chicog]

And there's more.....

FIFA Took Bribes Over Germany’s 2006 World Cup Bid, Report Says

• Denver Nicks @DenverNicks

5:05 PM ET

The graft-plagued organization says it will review claims in Der Spiegel magazine

The German committee responsible for organizing the country’s bid for the 2006 World Cup created a slush fund it used to bribe FIFA officials, according to a new report.

The German magazine Der Spiegelreports, citing internal documents, that the German bidding committee paid to secure the votes of four Asian members of the 24-person FIFA Executive Committee, the global organizing entity that oversees international soccer.

Before the bid was given to Germany in July 2000, the report continues, then-CEO of Adidas Robert Louis-Dreyfus secretly bankrolled the slush fund with a loan of 10.3 million Swiss Francs, or roughly six million U.S. dollars.

http://time.com/4077126/germany-fifa-bribery-scandal/?