ZURICH: The long arm of FIFA ethics committee has reached out to another former associate of disgraced former Asian confederation president Mohamed bin Hammam writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

The world federation’s independent ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert has banned Alberto Colaco, the former general secretary of the All India Football Federation, from any kind of football activity at national and international level for three years.

Colaco accepted a payment in the context of the elections for the FIFA executive committee at the AFC Congress in May 2009 while he was in that post and the voting delegate of the AIFF.

Coincidentally, the election was won narrowly by Bin Hammam and Colaco has been judged guilty of violating art. 13 (General rules of conduct), art. 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting), art. 19 (Conflicts of interest), art. 20 (Offering and accepting gifts and other benefits) and art. 21 (bribery and corruption) of the FIFA Code of Ethics.

Bin Hammam, who sought to oust Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2011, was suspended shortly before that election in a cash-for-votes scandal. Later he was banned for life for misuse of AFC funds.

The Sunday Times has claimed that Bin Hammam had spread his financial largesse far and wide among foreign football officials: the newspaper has claimed that this was in pursuance of Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid while Eckert – in his controversial bid scandal review – has suggested it was in pursuit of his presidential ambitions.

###############