Fifa admit suffering 'damage'

FIFA CORRUPTION SCANDAL:FIFA HAS admitted to suffering "very great damage" from a corruption scandal that yesterday led to six senior officials being punished with bans of between one and four years for a range of offences including bribery.

As Fifa’s ethics committee delivered the verdict, which will have a material impact on the votes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, prime minister David Cameron stepped up his efforts to woo key Fifa executives to England’s cause. It emerged yesterday that he has invited Jack Warner, the sometimes controversial Concacaf president, to lunch days before the vote.

Yet even though Fifa banned Nigeria's Amos Adamu for three years and his fellow executive committee member Reynald Temarii for one year, the ethics committee chairman, Claudio Sulser, hit out at the "sensationalist" Sunday Timesfor "twisting the facts". He said: "What I cannot tolerate is the fact that they changed the sentences, they changed the way they presented the truth. If footage is taken out of context that's twisting the facts. They showed footage that lasted four minutes. We have looked at audio and video footage of several hours."

An undercover investigation showed Adamu agreeing to accept money from journalists posing as lobbyists acting for the US bid. Temarii, the Oceania representative, was accused of soliciting money in return for his vote. Four more officials, all former executive committee members, received bans of between two and four years. The suspensions from “all football-related activity” mean the vote will go ahead on December 2nd with only 22 executive committee members.

The issue of the British media remains a sensitive one for the England bid team. They last weekend sent a letter to executive committee members seeking to distance themselves from the allegations, and the chief executive, Andy Anson, this week called the BBC "unpatriotic" for planning to broadcast a Panoramadocumentary on alleged Fifa corruption days before the vote.

However, the removal of Adamu and Temarii from the process is not necessarily to England’s benefit as they were understood to be hopeful of securing the vote of at least one of them. To be sure of reaching the second round England need seven votes with Spain/Portugal and Russia being England’s main rivals.

Cameron is targeting Warner because the three votes he controls as Concacaf president are thought to be crucial to England’s strategy. There are fears that Panorama could target Warner. Trinidad Tobago’s Newsday said the Fifa vice-president had not made up his mind but thought Russia were England’s main rivals. Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, will speak today following an emergency executive committee meeting that is also expected to consider the impact of this week’s technical reports.

Sulser said the committee could not find “sufficient grounds” to support claims of collusion between Qatar’s bid for the 2022 World Cup and Spain/Portugal’s 2018 bid. It was alleged that a bloc of seven votes had been sewn up by the two bidders, which is forbidden under the rules.

“We didn’t find sufficient grounds to reach the conclusion there was any collusion, therefore we didn’t move forward on that case,” said Sulser. “Obviously, it’s harder to prove collusion even though doubts may always arise.”

Adamu, who said he was “profoundly disappointed” with the decision, and Temarii will both appeal but they will not be heard before the December 2nd vote.

The other officials sanctioned were Ismael Bhamjee of Botswana, who was handed a four-year ban, Amadou Diakite of Mali and Ahongalu Fusimalohi of Tonga, who were suspended for three years, and the Tunisian chair of Fifa’s dispute resolution committee, Slim Aloulou, banned for two. All six were also fined.

Guardian Service