Bin Hammam sends open letter before FIFA appeal next week
Mohamed Bin Hammam has sent an open letter to FIFA claiming once again his innocence in bribing members of the Caribbean Football Union. Photo: Julian Lim/Flickr
09.09.2011
By Play the GameHad former FIFA presidential candidate and Vice-President Mohamed Bin Hammam been European, FIFA would not have dared to ban him from FIFA. This is one of the allegations Bin Hammam has sent in an open letter to the Deputy Chairman of the Ethics Committee in FIFA, Petrus Damaseb.
The letter comes just before FIFA’s appeal committee will gather next week on 15 September to go over Bin Hammans appeal of his lifetime ban from FIFA.
In the letter Bin Hammam again claims to be innocent of bribing anyone, including members of the Caribbean Football Union, at a meeting leading up to the presidential election in FIFA on 2 June. The allegations against him resulted in a temporary suspension followed by a lifetime ban from football, but Bin Hammam states that the Caribbean members are not cheap enough to take bribes, and that there is a conspiracy against them all, including himself.
The letter also alleges that Damaseb has acted like a puppet of FIFA president Sepp Blatter and FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke. At the same time the Qatari indirectly accuses Blatter and Valcke of corruption:
“Nobody in this world will believe that Valcke and Blatter are qualified to fight any sort of corruption. If they are serious about fighting corruption, they should have the courage to volunteer themselves as first subjects of such investigations on the allegations raised against them since years until today,” Bin Hammam writes.
International director at Play the Game, Jens Sejer Andersen, interprets the letter as being aimed more towards the public than at FIFA itself. But it could put a certain amount of pressure on FIFA’s politicians.
“The web of corrupt favours that has kept the leaders of FIFA together through generations is now falling apart and all the dirt comes out. Only an independent investigation can help FIFA and the rest of us to uncover what is the truth and what are smear campaigns,” Sejer Andersen concludes in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Read Mohamed Bin Hammam’s open letter to Deputy Chairman of FIFA’s Ethics Committee, Petrus Damaseb:
http://www.mohamedbinhammam.com/en/Blog/blog.php?menuNum=31
Also read BBC’s article on the open letter:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/14806623.stm
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Rajujoseph Rajujoseph,
03.10.2012 13:22:
Ok, I will elaborate. Bin Hammam is one of those that has beefinted from the patronage of the executive committee and its stealth dealings. It is how his country won the right to host the world cup in 2022. He has no track record of attempting to create greater transparency in FIFA or wanting to alter the image of FIFA until he decided to run for the presidency. Blatter is rightfully pegged as allowing the corruption to occur and not doing anything to thwart it but the actions of the ExCo in general do not lead me to believe that any other member of the ExCo is of the mind change anything. It was always an attack on the press for exposing the corruption not any disappointment in their colleagues for sullying the process. I take this to mean they like the sullying just so long as nobody knows. I'd rather take the devil I know in Blatter than the devil I don't in Bin Hammam. Plus, it seems Blazer has a nice relationship with Blatter which should be at least beneficial in some ways for CONCACAF and the USSF.