Bin Hammam calls on FIFA to probe Blatter
Reuters - Thursday 26 May 2011, 17:41
ZURICH - FIFA presidential candidate
Mohamed Bin Hammam called on incumbent and rival Sepp Blatter to
be included in an ethics investigation as the latest crisis to
engulf football's troubled governing body escalated on Thursday.
Bin Hamman, who will face an ethics committee hearing on
Sunday over a report of possible bribery along with CONCACAF
president Jack Warner, questioned the timing of the
investigation and said it could be part of a plan to force him
to withdraw from the June 1 election.
This was denied by Blatter who said he got no joy from the
allegations against 62-year-old Asian Football Confederation
head Bin Hammam, describing the Qatari as a "man whose
friendship I enjoyed for many years."
The pair came face to face on Thursday at a scheduled
meeting of the FIFA finance committee at the federation's
imposing headquarters in an exclusive Zurich suburb, a spokesman
said.
Finance committee chairman Julio Grondona told reporters:
"There was no problem between them, they even hugged in the
middle of the room."
The crisis erupted on Wednesday following a report by
CONCACAF secretary general Chuck Blazer on a meeting of the
Caribbean Football Union on May 10/11.
FIFA said the event was attended by Warner and Bin Hammam
and was linked to the presidential campaign.
Blazer, who like Bin Hammam and Warner is a member of FIFA's
powerful executive committee, reported possible violations of
the federation's code of ethics including possible bribery, FIFA
said.
CONCACAF and Asia are the only two continental
confederations not to have declared their support for a
candidate in the election, with Europe, South America, Africa
and Oceania all having said they will back Blatter.
The report sent to FIFA's ethics committee was prepared for
Blazer by Chicago-based lawyer John Collins, a sports law
specialist who has worked with the U.S. Soccer Federation.
From 1992 until 1997, Collins served in the office of the
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,
prosecuting cases involving bank fraud, securities fraud, and
other white collar crimes.
"I have written a lengthy report which has been submitted to
FIFA," said Collins, who declined to comment on the content of
the report or the kinds of documentation it contains.
LATEST SCANDAL
It was the latest scandal to hit FIFA since the
controversial vote which awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia
and the 2022 tournament to Qatar in December.
"The timing of the accusations so close to the election of
FIFA president on June 1, 2011 suggests that they are part of a
plan to damage Mr Bin Hammam and force him to withdraw as a
candidate for the FIFA presidency," said a statement on Bin
Hammam's website.
"The accusations also contain statements according to which
Mr Blatter... was informed of, but did not oppose, payments
allegedly made to members of the Caribbean Football Union.
"Mr Bin Hammam has therefore requested that the
investigation by the ethics committee be extended to include Mr
Blatter himself."
Blatter denied this in a column for the Inside World
Football website.
"To now assume that the present ordeal of my opponent were
to fill me with some sort of perverse satisfaction or that this
entire matter was somehow masterminded by me is ludicrous and
completely reprehensible," he said
"I am shocked, saddened and deeply unhappy about the charges
levelled against a man whose friendship I enjoyed for many
years," said Blatter, who is standing for a fourth term.
"It gives me no pleasure to see him suffer public disgrace
before an investigation would even have started."
He also praised Blazer, CONCACAF's general secretary since
1990.
"I also admire Chuck Blazer's civic courage and an
initiative that resulted from reports he received from within
the confederation he administers as its secretary general.
There were no clues as to where Sunday's hearing could leave
the June 1 election, especially if Bin Hammam is provisionally
suspended.
The hearing will be chaired by Namibian judge Petrus
Damaseb, former president of his country's football association.
Damaseb, who played at one of Namibia's top clubs Chiefs
Santos, studied at Warwick University in England on a United
Nations scholarship after fleeing his country as a teenager to
join its struggle for independence from South Africa.
After 1990 he returned to work in the new Namibian
government before going into private practice and then being
named a judge of the high court in 2004.