Showing posts with label Mohammed Bin Hammam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mohammed Bin Hammam. Show all posts

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Platini rules out FIFA role

UEFA president Michel Platini is adamant there is "no possibility" he will run for the presidency of FIFA after the election next week was thrown into chaos by bribery allegations.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter will appear at a FIFA ethics committee hearing on Sunday to answer a complaint made by his rival for the presidency Mohamed Bin Hammam, who faces a separate charge of bribery along with one of the organisation's vice-presidents Jack Warner.
"I have just been voted in for four years at UEFA and there is just no possibility (of going to FIFA)," Platini told BBC Sport.
"If there is an election then a new president will be elected for four years.
"If there is no election then it will be complicated, but I don't know what will happen."
Blatter admitted he also did not know what would happen if both presidential candidates were suspended on Sunday and that this was a "strange moment" for the governing body.
"I am concerned because I am vice-president," he added.
"The governing body of football has to be clean, has to be good, has to think about what the values of football are and things like that.
"We know perhaps in the big assemblies there are not so clean people, like with journalists, football players, in music, politicians. Let's go to the executive committee, the disciplinary committee, let the people have some evidence and take a decision after that."
Warner and Bin Hammam face lengthy bans should the corruption allegations made by fellow executive committee member Chuck Blazer be proven.

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World Cup - Platini rules out FIFA role

FIFA president Sepp Blatter will appear at a FIFA ethics committee hearing on Sunday to answer a complaint made by his rival for the presidency Mohamed Bin Hammam, who faces a separate charge of bribery along with one of the organisation's vice-presidents Jack Warner.
"I have just been voted in for four years at UEFA and there is just no possibility (of going to FIFA)," Platini told BBC Sport. "If there is an election then a new president will be elected for four years.
"If there is no election then it will be complicated, but I don't know what will happen."
Blatter admitted he also did not know what would happen if both presidential candidates were suspended on Sunday and that this was a "strange moment" for the governing body.
"I am concerned because I am vice-president," he added.
"The governing body of football has to be clean, has to be good, has to think about what the values of football are and things like that.
"We know perhaps in the big assemblies there are not so clean people, like with journalists, football players, in music, politicians. Let's go to the executive committee, the disciplinary committee, let the people have some evidence and take a decision after that."
Warner and Bin Hammam face lengthy bans should the corruption allegations made by fellow executive committee member Chuck Blazer be proven.
PA Sport
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World Cup - Embattled Blatter to miss Champions League final

Blatter's spokesman said he had too many other things on his plate and had decided to skip Saturday's match at Wembley whereManchester United face Barcelona.
"He has other things on his mind and hasn't got the time," Brian Alexander said.
Blatter will face the hearing along with Mohamed Bin Hammam, his challenger for the FIFA presidency, following a report on a meeting of Caribbean officials connected to the campaign earlier this month.
The report, prepared by FIFA executive committee member and CONCACAF secretary general Chuck Blazer, mentioned possible violation of the FIFA's ethics code by officials including "allegations of bribery".
Blatter, standing for a fourth term, has not commented on the procedings but has said that "the facts will speak for themselves." Bin Hammam has denied any wrongdoing.
CONCACAF president Jack Warner will also appear before the committee on Sunday along with two Caribbean officials.
Reuters
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Bin Hammam denies wrongdoing in FIFA ethics case

* Bin Hammam denies wrongdoing on "painful" day
* Qatari still expects to stand for FIFA presidency
* Allegations will "vanish in the wind", says challenger (adds details)
FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam denied any wrongdoing in an alleged bribery case on Wednesday, suggesting the investigation was "little more than a tactic" from his election rival Sepp Blatter.
FIFA rocked the election campaign on Wednesday when it said it had begun ethical proceedings against Bin Hammam, the Qatari head of the Asian Football Confederation, along with CONCACAF president Jack Warner and two other officials.
Bin Hammam, the only challenger to incumbent Blatter in the June 1 vote, responded by dismissing the allegations.
"This has been a difficult and painful day for me today," he said in a statement. "But, if there is even the slightest justice in the world, these allegations will vanish in the wind.
"This move is little more than a tactic being used by those who have no confidence in their own ability to emerge successfully from the FIFA Presidential election."
FIFA said it had received a report from Chuck Blazer, another executive committee member, which included "bribery allegations".
The report referred to a Caribbean Football Union meeting which was attended by Warner and Bin Hammam on May 10/11 and was linked to the election campaign.
Bin Hammam said in the statement: "Here I completely deny any allegations of wrongdoing either intentionally or unknowingly while I was in the Caribbean.
"I will speak to Mr. Warner on this subject and offer him my full support in ensuring we are discharged honourably by the FIFA Ethics Committee, a body which I hold in the highest esteem.
"I am confident that there is no charge to answer and that I will be free to stand in the FIFA Presidential election on June 1 as originally planned."
reuters

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Monday, May 23, 2011

World Cup - Blatter blasts 'envious' critics


FIFA has been scarred by allegations surrounding the process to choose the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts, won by Russia and Qatar respectively.
Blatter said he was ready to confront the past if successful in the June 1 vote, when Asian soccer chief Mohamed Bin Hammam is standing against him, but he also said FIFA was a victim of its own success since he became president in 1998.
"We shall find a solution how to handle the past - how to handle the past in order that we can stop once and for ever that all these image damaging things about corruption," Blatter said at FIFA headquarters, in comments embargoed until Monday.
"Handling the past will be presented to the Congress.
"We have to make sure that in the next term of office, starting immediately after the election, that we rebuild the image of FIFA not only by a better communication...but by facts.
"There will be facts. Don't ask me now which facts."
Blatter said that FIFA, which he described as not rich but in a comfortable financial situation, had over $1 billion in reserves.
"If we were still the poor association we were until the World Cup in France -- because France was the last poor World Cup - nobody would care," he said.
"There would be no financial assistance programmes, no referees' assistance programmes, no goal projects, no management, nothing. There would be nothing.
"But I think also, there would be no discussion of allegations of corruption. It's only when you have success..."
"What is the attraction of success? To be part of it, or to be jealous of it. So you try to be in. If you cannot be in, you are jealous, you are envious and this can be changed into hatred and then, you see, there are people who to like to destroy something."
The allegations of corruption and lack of transparency have dogged FIFA throughout the campaign.
Two members of FIFA's executive committee were banned from all football-related activity last November for allegedly offering to sell their votes to undercover newspaper reporters.
Earlier this month, a British parliamentary inquiry into why England failed to secure the 2018 finals was told by member of parliament Damian Collins there was evidence from the Sunday Times newspaper that Issa Hayatou of Cameroon and Jacques Anouma of Ivory Coast were paid by Qatar.
Qatar have categorically denied the allegations as have Hayatou and Anouma.
"It hurts me," said Blatter of the criticism.
"I can tell you, if you go in depth into the clubs, in the youth organisations, in the professional and amateur leagues everywhere and the organisation of football in the 208 national associations, the contact they have with their public...is generally a good contact.
"We have realised there are people in FIFA (who) do not deserve to be there, especially in the government of FIFA," added Blatter, who for the second time this month distanced himself from his executive committee.
"I have no influence and I cannot take any responsibility. They have their own character and own conscience," he said.
"I cannot respond for the others."
He suggested the story would be different if the FIFA Congress, rather than the regional confederations, chose the 24-man executive committee.
"The government of FIFA is elected by the confederations and they have their own agendas, and it is very difficult to bring everybody together."
Weighing up his own 13 years at the helm, the Swiss said any mistakes he had made were the result of hard work.
"If I am looking at the results of what I have done I have to say...that it is more positive than negative.
"Those who work hard make more mistakes than those who work less.
"There is a saying especially when it comes to political administration that those who are promoted at the end of the year are those who have made no mistakes and those who have made no mistakes are those who haven't worked."
Reuters
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