Former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam has won his appeal against a lifetime ban, as ruled Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The CAS lifted a banimposed by FIFA for allegedly bribing voters during his election challenge to Sepp Blatter last year. It ruled that a FIFA probe didn’t find conclusive evidence.
But thecourt did not declare Bin Hammam innocent of corruption. Instead, it said in a statement. “It is a situation of ‘case not proven,’ coupled with concern on the part of the Panel that the FIFAinvestigation was not complete or comprehensive enough to fill the gaps in the record.”
FIFA said its newly appointed prosecutor Michael J. Garcia will re-examine the caseregarding Bin Hammam, a native of Qatar who was named to head the Asian Football Confederation in 2002 and after helping Qatar win hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup decided to run for FIFApresident.
A scandal regarding the attempted buying of votes from Caribbean countries forced him to withdraw, and Blatter won re-election unopposed. But the CAS was not satisfied with theevidence presented. FIFA’s code of ethics prohibits officials receiving cash gifts, yet during a meeting in Port of Spain Caribbean officials were given brown envelopes stuffed with piles of $100bills as payment of bribes reported to be $40,000 apiece.
The panel, which was split 2-1 in his favor, “is not making any sort of affirmative finding of innocence in relation to BinHammam,” the court said. “It is more likely than not that Mr. Bin Hammam was the source of the monies that were brought into Trinidad & Tobago.