A week before the FIFA presidential election is set to take place, one of the candidates and another high-powered FIFA executive have been implicated in a corruption scandal by an unlikely whistleblower.
Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation president and challenger to Sepp Blatter, and three others — including CONCACAF president Jack Warner — were reportedly outed to FIFA by CONCACAF secretary general Chuck Blazer. The allegations surround meetings held between Bin Hammam and members of the Caribbean Football Union two weeks ago in regard to the upcoming election, according to a FIFA statement.
The accused will be subject to a FIFA ethics committee hearing set for Sunday.
(UPDATE: Bin Hammam has responded to the allegations via his Web site. "I completely deny any allegations of wrongdoing either intentionally or unknowingly while I was in the Caribbean," he wrote. Read the rest of his statement here.)
What do you think of this development? What do you hope/expect to come out of this?
Share your thoughts below.
Has anyone seen Wahl’s rap sheet?
Sarcasm………….
They have in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolphe_Seeldrayers
Moving the Gold Cup out of the US would be a massive $$$ hit. Not happening. As for Blatter, he voted for the US. The guy’s a jerk, but Bin Hamman would be more beneficial from a US perspective.
This is how I feel. This Evil Chuck stuff has come out of thin air. Sure, it’s FIFA, so that alone indicates he’s not clean… but so far there have been no allegations (outside of these boards) or any evidence brought against him.
Uh… if Warner had anything on Blazer, that would be reason for Blazer NOT to go after him.
None.
LOL really? Generally EVERYONE accepts Warner is corrupt. He kept the T&T players WC bonuses for years, even after the court told him to pay up. He has routed WC tickets through a family travel business. There a numerous more actual hard factual incidents, plus probably dozens we don’t even know about, that tell us Warner is corrupt as they come…but he was also pretty untouchable for years. He was the power broker, with 25 votes in his pocket.
I wouldn’t say its limited just to third world countries either, but that its just less likely. There is plenty of history of “interesting” or “head-scratching” deals with FIFA execs…
Ugghh! FIFA’s one country, one vote system is a joke. And as long as minnows in the Carribean, Africa, Asia, Oceana and even Europe who are about as competitive at soccer as a high school team have the same powers as the giants, these sorts of shenanigans will continue. The minnows are the ones who put Blatter, Warner and Bin Hammam and most of the other cronies into their positions.
What if they held a World Cup and nobody came? That’d show ’em. 😉