FIFA report accuses Bin Hammam of bribery

Qatari faces allegations of giving cash gifts.

LONDON:

Mohamed bin Hammam tried to bribe officials in his campaign to oust Sepp Blatter as Fifa President, according to a secret report by the organisation’s ethics committee.

There was “comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming” evidence against Bin Hammam, the head of the Asian Football Confederation, and former Fifa Vice-President Jack Warner was “an accessory to corruption”, the report said. The report goes on to state that there was “compelling” evidence that the two arranged a special meeting of the members of the Caribbean Football Union on May 10-11 in Trinidad and that, with their knowledge, cash gifts were handed over.

“The committee is of the opinion that the respective money gifts can probably only be explained if they’re associated with the Fifa presidential elections,” said the report.

“Therefore it appears rather compelling to consider the actions of Bin Hammam constitute prima facie an act of bribery, or at least an attempt to commit bribery.”

Earlier, Fifa announced that Warner had resigned from his post and quit all football-related activities prompting it to drop all investigations into the Trinidadian, while Bin Hammam had been provisionally suspended by the body on May 29 along with Warner.

Bin Hammam protested his innocence after the emergence of the report.

“There is nothing I can say more than I deny the allegations and insist that I have not done anything wrong during the special Congress at Trinidad,” he said.

Following Bin Hammam’s withdrawal, Blatter was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term as Fifa president.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd,  2011.