FIFA begins probe into vote-selling claims
Reuters - Wednesday 20 October 2010, 02:00
ZURICH - FIFA will begin an investigation
on Wednesday into allegations of vote-selling by two members of
its executive committee in the contest to host the 2018 and 2022
World Cups and that bidding nations may have colluded.
Tahitian Reynald Temarii and Nigerian Amos Adamu will be
summoned as the ethics committee probes allegations they offered
to sell their votes when approached by Sunday Times reporters
posing as lobbyists for an American consortium.
The newspaper report said Adamu was filmed asking for
500,000 pounds for a personal project and that
Oceania Football Confederation president Temarii asked an
undercover reporter in Auckland for NZ$3m ($2.27 million) to
fund a sports academy at the OFC's headquarters.
The committee, headed by former Switzerland international
Claudio Sulser, will also investigate suspicions that bidding
nations may have broken the rules by making agreements which
FIFA said would constitute a "clear violation of the bid
registration document and the code of ethics".
Temarii and Adamu could be suspended or kicked off the
executive committee if found guilty.
World football's governing body has not said how long the
investigation will take nor whether any bids could be
disqualified, though a media conference will be held at 16:00 GMT
when provisional measures could be announced.
The hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be decided
in Zurich on December 2, with the 24 members of the executive
committee eligible to vote.
The vote-selling allegations have been hugely damaging for
the whole bid process in which FIFA demands meticulous, high
quality bids from candidates.
England and Russia are bidding for 2018 along with joint
bids from Spain/Portugal and Netherlands/Belgium while Japan,
South Korea, Qatar, Australia and the United States are the
candidates for 2022.