Bin Hammam expects life-long ban

Suspended Qatari boycotts hearing, leaves case in hands of lawyers.

ZURICH:

Mohamed bin Hammam vowed ‘justice will prevail’ despite deciding not to attend a two-day Fifa ethics committee hearing that could see him banned from the sport for life.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president was due to appear before a five-person ethics committee panel chaired by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb at Fifa headquarters in Zurich. However, an official close to Bin Hammam informed that he had elected to stay away and leave the case in the hands of his lawyers.

“I remain confident that the case and the evidence presented against me are weak and unsubstantiated,” he wrote on his blog. “They will not stand up to scrutiny in any court of law. It seems likely that Fifa has already made its decision weeks ago. So, none of us should be surprised if a guilty verdict is returned.”

A leaked initial report by the committee claimed there was ‘overwhelming’ evidence to convict Bin Hammam of wrongdoing.

Former FBI director Louis Freeh led a subsequent investigation and found that although much of the evidence against Bin Hammam was ‘circumstantial’, it was nonetheless ‘compelling’. Bin Hammam’s absence, coupled with the fatalistic tone of his latest blog post, suggests he fully expects the ethics committee to hand down a worldwide lifetime ban when they deliver their verdict.





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