Guilty: Bin Hammam banned for life

The Telegraph – ZURICH, Mohamed Bin Hammam, the former Fifa executive committee member, has been issued with a life ban from football after being found guilty of attempted bribery.

A hearing of Fifa’s ethics committee concluded that Bin Hammam had been behind offers or donations of $40,000 to officials from the Caribbean Football Union as he sought votes in his bid to challenge Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency.

The scandal ensured that Blatter was ultimately elected unopposed as Fifa president, with Bin Hammam suspended just days before last month’s vote.

Bin Hammam, who was also the president of the Asian Football Confederation, will now pursue other legal avenues, including the Court of Arbitration for Sport, in an attempt to appeal the decision and clear his name. He has always denied any wrongdoing and showed his disdain for the “flimsy” case against him by not even attending the two-day hearing at Fifa’s headquarters in Zurich.

The verdicts against him, however, were emphatic. Chaired by Petrus Damaseb, a Namibian judge, the ethics committee found Bin Hammam guilty of charges relating to bribery and accepting or giving gifts.

The ban relates to all football-related activity, although Damaseb was unable to say if it would stop Bin Hammam bidding for construction contracts in relation to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.