FIFA claim evidence of bribes

THERE is “comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming” evidence that FIFA member Mohamed Bin Hammam tried to bribe officials during his presidential campaign and that Jack Warner was “an accessory to corruption”, according to a secret report by FIFA’s ethics committee.

FIFA announced on Monday that Warner had resigned as FIFA vice-president and quit all football activities, and the world governing body said they had dropped all investigations into him and that “the presumption of innocence is maintained”.

But the full report of the ethics committee headed by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb which provisionally suspended Warner and Bin Hammam on May 29 says there was “prima facie” evidence that bribes had been paid to officials to support Bin Hammam’s campaign for the FIFA presidency, and that Warner had facilitated this.

The pair — two of the three most powerful men in world football — were suspended last month pending a full inquiry. Bin Hammam withdrew as a candidate against Sepp Blatter on the morning of his ethics committee hearing on May 29. Both he and Warner have always denied any wrongdoing.

The 17-page ethics committee document setting out their decision was faxed to Warner last week, on June 14, and three days later he informed FIFA he was resigning.

A copy of that report concludes that there was “compelling” evidence that Bin Hammam and Warner arranged a special meeting of the 25 members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) on May 10 and 11 in Trinidad and that, with their knowledge, cash gifts were handed over.

Statements from witnesses, described as “credible and correspondent” in the report, said they were handed brown envelopes each containing $40,000 (€27,000). One of the witnesses, Fred Lunn from the Bahamas, photographed the cash before returning it.

Warner’s evidence to the May 29 hearing is described as “mere self-serving declarations” and that he “failed to provide the FIFA ethics committee with a plausible explanation”.