By ADAM SERRANO
Sepp Blatter has lost his lone competitor for the FIFA presidency.
Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam withdrew his bid to become the president of FIFA just a day before he is to stand before the FIFA ethics committee due to allegations of bribery. Bin Hammam's withdrawal also comes just days before the June 1 FIFA election.
"It saddens me that standing up for the causes that I believed in has come at a great price — the degradation of FIFA's reputation. This is not what I had in mind for FIFA and this is unacceptable," Bin Hammam said in a statement. "I cannot allow the name that I loved to be dragged more and more in the mud because of competition between two individuals. The game itself and the people who love it around the world must come first. It is for this reason that I announce my withdrawal from the presidential election."
Bin Hammam, the architect for the successful 2022 World Cup bid for his native Qatar, had come under fire this week when he and CONCACAF president Jack Warner were accused by FIFA Executive Committee member and CONCACAF secretary general Chuck Blazer for offering $40,000 in bribes to national associations.
Blatter is also under investigation for looking the other way after allegedly knowing about the bribery. Warner, Bin Hammam and Blatter still have their hearing with the ethics committee scheduled for Sunday.
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What do you think of this development?
Share your thoughts below.
say what? how about europe/africa/asia as one, americas as another, and pacific as last. that makes more sense geographically.
if you’re inferring that a re-vote would put Iberian peninsula at the top for 22, that would end up having back-to-back World Cups in Europe. Though you’d prefer every WC in Europe, that will never pass the non-europeans.
I don’t think that we should conflate Russia and Qatar. Russia had a strong bid – over 150 million in population, never hosted the WC, rich soccer history (Olympic and European Champions), plenty of existing soccer venues, experience of hosting large evens such as Olympics (Champions League’s finals, etc), good climate in the summer. Plus alcohol consumption is legal and women do not have to wear burkas. The runner up was the joint bid by Spain/Portugal which had a deal with Qatar to exchange votes.
Now i totally get it. Bin Hammam was not a serious candidate and the “bribes” to CFU officials in early May were all a ruse. This was a setup whereby fifa would focus a corruption “investigation”, being on the buying of votes for Bin Hammam’s “candidacy” and not on how Qatar got the WC (the much bigger picture)
IMO, the granting of Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 WCs respectively will go down as one of the most corrupt events in soccer history. The fact that these events are seemingly going unscathed and un-investigated outside of simply an internal FIFA Ethics Committee meeting is appalling. The worldwide soccer community needs to do something to prohibit events like this in the future. WHAT A JOKE.
if you believe he dropped out because of his stated love for FIFA and how he can’t stand to see it get dragged thru the mud, then I’ve got some swamp land to sell you in Florida.
no limits to these cronies’ BS and lies. they are truly disgusting. Rich, powerful, “successful”…and disgusting.
Can FIFA be saved? Should it?
No, start from scratch or break it up into two entities, Africa/Asia……Eur/Americas.
Remember, FIFA is considering having the World Cup in January
not sure why i added cl after the concacaf. i meant just about organization of concacaf
you saying there has to be some sort of scapegoat? i think the charges are widespread, and i’m not sure everything can just be put under the rug. I do think a deal has been made with Bin Hammam to protect the Qatar award, though they probably agreed that a show “re-vote” would probably occur to ensure confidence, though the outcome of that “re-vote” is already known. Warner however, may be too dirty to retain.I wonder how that will change concacaf cl? would mexican teams be disallowed from copa lib? or canadian teams from MLS?just wondering about unusual things allowed in concacaf cl that dont occur in other parts ofthe world.
Er, NO national federation…
Because national federation would stick it’s neck out to nominate him.
Tragic, really.
ughhh does anyone know why did Grant Wahl dropped his FIFA pres bid??!
IMO, a deal has been made. Bin Hammam withdraws from the race, no wrongdoing is found in either investigation, and Blatter gets another 4 years. But we’ll see.
Yeah, but as Blatter has shown, if you’re President you can use a combination of carrot and stick to get a lot of cooperation. If Bin Hamman was in trouble and couldn’t swing a deal, the best move he could make is to get elected President (or at least stay in the race) b/c then he can continue to claim that these are just trumped up charges by Blatter to deflect “reform”. No, Bin Hamman pulled out b/c there’s some kind of deal and something that benefits him by pulling out. We don’t know what it is. Maybe it protects the Qatar WC bid. I agree he’s still the AFC President. But Blatter could certainly put the kibosh on a serious investigation (as he’s done previously) so just b/c Warner and Bin Hammam still hold FIFA positions of some sort doesn’t mean that the investigation would continue on “full speed”. And here’s how we’ll know….if nothing else happens. Maybe one or two excom members get fined or resigned. But if there is no WC rebid, if there is no major changes i both membership and procedure, if no heads roll…than we’ll know there was a deal. Blazer is supposed to have claimed that Bin Hammam offered $20k per vote to each Concacaf member. If true, we should see a lot more bodies flying than just Bin Hammam’s and maybe Warner’s.
+1
FIFA Ethics Committee is an oxymoron.
Warner and the rest of um, out!
Any one think that they will drop the investegation of him now that he is not running any more.
I kind of agree. There’s no way he’d be dropping out unless he stood to gain from doing it.
I don’t know how they can have a vote, though, with the only candidate being investigated. I thought they’d postpone the election.
Maybe they were waiting to not further overshadow the ECL final?
But really, who knows with this crowd.
They could, actually. If the Ethics Committee unearths any improprieties, they could essentially throw out the results of the previous vote and open up the bidding procedures again. Not saying they will, but they very well could.
Just because he dropped from the presidential race doesn’t mean the charges against him and Warner are now moot. He’s still the AFC president and Warner is still a FIFA EXCO member. This just means when he’s found guilty he won’t be forced to step down as FIFA president, if he’d won.
Now kick Jack Warner out.
Well, this is probably a bad thing.
First, there is no reason for him to drop out of the race unless a deal is made. Maybe it’s a deal where Blatter pulls the investigation of Bin Hammam and then b/c Blatter is unopposed the investigation on him gets whitewashed. Or maybe it’s Bin Hammam promising to drop out if there isn’t a revote on the WC decisions. But it makes no sense for Bin Hammam to drop out (b/c we know it’s not about morals) unless he thinks he gains something from dropping out.
Additionally, I’d think that with the Blazer charges about Bin Hammam and Warner, this probably ends that investigation (which means we’ve now pissed off Warner but he may still stay in power). And of course, this probably means Blatter wins by default.
god i have no desire to endure another couple years of blatter. why didnt a reasonable candidate try to run for this position? nooooooooooo
Plus the fact that it will be nearly impossible to host a World Cup in Qatar in the summer.
guilty
I know FIFA won’t go back and re-vote for 2022, but in all seriousness they should. Especially since there is plenty of time before the world cup and we find out that so many unethical things happened. Which to us are no surprise.
I think he’s trying to save face before the lid’s blown off this thing.
“It saddens me that standing up for the causes that I believed in has come at a great price — the degradation of FIFA’s reputation. This is not what I had in mind for FIFA and this is unacceptable.”
What he means to say is that he would have fit in just perfectly as president.