ZURICH: FIFA was left spinning on its axis for a second time within hours when the publication of the critical ISL report was followed by an eight-year ban for executive member Vernon Manilal Fernando writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
This means the AFC, which is due to elect one new FIFA exco delegate on Thursday, will have to find another ahead of the world federation’s congress inMauritiuson May 30 and 31.
It could be that both Thursday’s registered contestants for one place – Hassan Al-Thawadi ofQatarand Sheikh Salman ofBahrain– could find themselves both winners.
Manilal Fernando, fromSri Lanka, was suspended provisionally in March by FIFA ethics bosses Michael Garcia and Hans-Joachim Eckert on allegations thought to have been linked with the Mohamed Bin Hammam election scandal of 2011.
Eckert announced this afternoon that the suspension had been confirmed.
A FIFA statement said: “The adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert, has decided to ban FIFA Executive Committee member Vernon Manilal Fernando from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level for a period of eight years after he was found guilty of several breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics.
“The decision was reached following two days of hearings held on 29 and 30 April at FIFA’s headquarters inZurich.”
The Sri Lankan’s suspension casts further questions over the FIFA future of Worawi Makudi ofThailand. The FIFA exco member is standing for the presidency of the Asian confederation later this week. But he also accompanied Manilal and Bin HAmmam to what proved a fatally self-destructive meeting of the Caribbean Football Union in May 2011.
Manilal is the second scandal-struck departure from the FIFA exco in seven days after veteran South American confederation president Nicolas Leoz quit on health grounds last week.