Fifa suspends two over ‘bribery’

Less than two months before the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting decisions, Fifa suspends two members on bribery charges.

Inside Story - Fifa selling World Cup votes
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Bribery allegations linked to the World Cup decision have cast a pall over the upcoming December announcement [EPA]

Just three days after bribery allegations against two executive members surfaced, Fifa has announced the suspension of the two men, who are linked to allegations of vote-selling for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting decision.

Jerome Valcke, Fifa secretary general, said on Wednesday that Oceania representative Reynald Temarii and African executive committee member Amos Adamu had been “provisionally suspended from all football related activity” by the soccer governing body’s ethics committee.

A Fifa statement also said that four other officials had been investigated and provisionally suspended for violations of Fifa statutes related to the bidding process for the two World Cups.

The six cases will be investigated, and the ethics committee will meet again next month to make a final decision on them.

Claudio Sulser, chairman of the Fifa ethics committee, which is investigating the allegations that Temarii and Adamu were prepared to sell their votes for the December 2 election, added that two national bodies were also being investigated over collusion.

The investigation came about after an undercover reporter from the British Sunday Times newspaper posed as a US lobbyist and offered Adamu for $800,000.

Adamu allegedly said he wanted the money to build four artificial football pitches which would be against Fifa’s rules 

The paper also said that Temarii offered his vote for $2.3m.

Temarii has said his comments on the Sunday Times video had been taken out of context.

Source: News Agencies