FIFA bans duo from World Cup voting
ZURICH (AP) — FIFA suspended two executive committee members from voting for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts yesterday after completing a corruption investigation, and cleared Qatar and Spain-Portugal of vote-trading.
FIFA’s ethics panel banned Nigeria’s Amos Adamu from all football activity for three years for agreeing to take bribes from undercover reporters from the British Sunday Times newspaper who posed as lobbyists trying to buy votes.
Reynald Temarii of Tahiti, the president of Oceania’s confederation, was suspended for one year for breaching FIFA’s loyalty and confidentiality rules when he was secretly filmed in the undercover sting.
Four former FIFA executive committee members also were suspended based on allegations published by the newspaper.
“It is sad,” FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said. “It was not necessary what has happened. The way FIFA and the ethics committee has reacted shows how important it is to show things are under control.”
With Adamu and Temarii suspended, 22 FIFA ruling committee members — instead of 24 — will vote in the World Cup secret ballots on Dec. 2 in Zurich. Temarii was mandated by Oceania to back Australia in 2022 voting.
Valcke said there was not enough time for appeals by Adamu and Temarii to overturn the ethics verdicts before the vote.
“There will only be 22 members for the vote,” Valcke said at a news conference.
The poll will proceed with a full slate of nine bid candidates after FIFA’s ethics committee, led by chairman Claudio Sulser, found no evidence to prove the British newspaper’s claims that Qatar and Spain-Portugal broke rules by colluding to exchange votes.
“We didn’t find sufficient grounds to reach the conclusion that there was any collusion,” said Sulser, adding that the FIFA voters implicated gave written statements but were not questioned.
Qatar bid chief executive Hassan Al-Thawadi welcomed a ruling he said would end weeks of “rumors and hearsay.”
The 2018 contest is between England, Russia and the joint bids of Belgium-Holland and Spain-Portugal. The 2022 race involves the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Qatar.
