Four-year ban for ex-FIFA committee man who skimmed off development cash
KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: An African football supremo who diverted development grants from world federation FIFA has been banned from the game for four years.
Domingo Mituy Edjang was president of the Equatorial Guinea FA and a FIFA standing committee member when he was caught out in 2014 amid a turbulent time for the country’s football.
He left the federation a reported £1.2m in debt and with salaries unpaid for almost a year.
On top of that his reign had seen Equatorial Guinea’s national team disqualified from the 2015 African Cup of Nations during the qualifying competition for fielding the ineligible Cameroon-born striker Thierry Fidjeu.
Edjang was succeeded in an election supervised by FIFA by Jorge Andres Mbomio. He successfully proposed Equatorial Guinea to be a late replacement host for the finals in January and February 2015 after Morocco pulled out for fears over the spread of ebola.
Thus it has taken more than five years for FIFA’s ethics committee to bring Mituy Edjang, who also had a spell as Foreign Minister, to football justice.
FIFA statement:
The adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee has found Mr Domingo Mituy Edjang, a former President of the Equatorial Guinea Football Association (FEGUIFUT) and a former FIFA standing committee member, guilty of having misappropriated FIFA funds in violation of the FIFA Code of Ethics.
The investigation into Mr Mituy Edjang was related to the misappropriation of FIFA Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) funds received by FEGUIFUT in 2014.
In its decision, the adjudicatory chamber found that Mr Mituy Edjang had breached art. 21 par. 2 (Bribery and corruption) of the 2012 edition of the FIFA Code of Ethics and sanctioned him with a ban for four years from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level. In addition, a fine in the amount of CHF 80,000 has been imposed on Mr Mituy Edjang.
The decision was notified to Mr Mituy Edjang today, the date on which the ban comes into force.
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