SEOUL: Chung Mong-joon will appeal against his six-year ban from football for his activities in support of South Korea’s 2022 World Cup hosting bid writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

A punishment of the 61-year-old billionaire was announced by the FIFA ethics committee along with the suspensions of president Sepp Blatter, UEFA leader Michel Platini and the world federation’s secretary-general Jerome Valcke.

Chung has promised “to mobilise all legal means ” to have the suspension set aside in a bid to maintain his attempt to stand in the forthcoming presidential election.

He said he was not surprised by the decision but “profoundly disappointed” that, in his opinion, the ethics committee was serving only the purposes of scandal-embroiled president Sepp Blatter.

Reviewing the issue on which he had been punished, the former FIFA vice-president said: “This is a most blatant miscarriage of justice. The investigation against me was initiated over allegations that the letters that I had sent to fellow FIFA executive members explaining Korea World Cup 2022 bid committee’s ‘Global Football Fund’ had an ‘appearance of offering a benefit.’

“However, it turns out that this allegation, too, has now been dropped.  This means the ethics committee is sanctioning me for six years only for my ‘ethical attitude.’

“FIFA is like the sinking Titanic.  If there are those within FIFA who continue to only look out for their own selfish interests while hastening FIFA’s downfall, history will judge them harshly, along with president Blatter who has morally bankrupted FIFA.

“I will mobilise all legal means available to expose the injustice of this decision while continuing to do my utmost to reform FIFA.”

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