Five more associations say they were offered money

SOCCER:THE INDEPENDENT investigation commissioned by Fifa into allegations that Mohamed bin Hammam paid bribes to officials during his campaign to unseat Sepp Blatter as Fifa president has uncovered further evidence against the Qatari. A total of nine Caribbean Football Union associations are believed to have told investigators they were offered €28,000 in brown paper envelopes.

A leaked preliminary report, on which the decision to suspend Bin Hammam and Fifa’s then vice-president Jack Warner was taken on May 29th, had relied on evidence from four CFU members. A further five associations have since told the investigation that they too were offered or given money at the meeting on May 10th-11th, or saw evidence of that happening.

The investigation by Louis Freeh was concluded last week and also included evidence that the CFU did not have the means to make the payments itself. A total of €698,491 is alleged to have been offered to the 25 member associations that attended the meeting. CFU officials are alleged to have handed over the money to them one by one in brown envelopes. Warner, who has since resigned as a Fifa vice-president while protesting his innocence, is alleged to have told them the next day that it was from Bin Hammam.

The report compiled by Robert Torres, the judge heading the Fifa ethics committee investigation, has been sent to Bin Hammam and the two accused CFU officials – Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester – ahead of a meeting in Zurich on July 22nd and 23rd.

Bin Hammam, who has continued to insist that he did nothing wrong, is expected to argue that some of those who claim to have been offered money did not even have a vote in the presidential election. He will also argue that the evidence shows he was not present when the money was handed over, nor when Warner claimed it was from him.

When the original report was leaked Bin Hammam said: “There is nothing I can say more than I deny the allegations and insist that I have not done anything wrong during special congress at Trinidad.”

GuardianService