Bin Hammam appeals to CAS over ban
Reuters - Monday 15 October 2012, 16:06
Former FIFA presidential candidate and executive committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over his provisional ban from football, the latest episode in a long-running saga.
Bin Hammam, who challenged Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency last year, was provisionally suspended by the sport's world governing body on July 26, only one week after CAS had overturned his life ban from football.
Bin Hamman's lawyer Eugene Gulland said in a statement that the former Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president had filed an appeal with CAS "challenging the provisional suspension ordered by FIFA."
In overturning Bin Hammam's life ban in July, CAS said FIFA had provided insufficient evidence over allegations that he tried to bribe Caribbean officials in the run-up to last year's election.
However, it said the decision was not "an affirmative finding of innocence" for Bin Hammam, and that the case could be re-opened with new evidence.
One week later, FIFA said Bin Hammam would be banned for 90 days while its ethics committee collected further evidence.
Bin Hammam was accused of trying to buy the votes of Caribbean officials by handing them $40,000 each in brown envelopes at a meeting in Port of Spain one month before the FIFA election.
He withdrew his candidacy for the FIFA elections and was subsequently suspended pending an investigation.
Blatter was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term as FIFA president, while Bin Hammam was found guilty of breaking seven articles of FIFA's ethics code, including one on bribery.
Proceedings against former CONCACAF president Jack Warner, also present at the meeting in Trinidad & Tobago, were dropped after he resigned his post.