Ex-candidate bin Hammam faces FIFA bribery case

Mohamed bin Hammam arrived at FIFA headquarters on Sunday to answer bribery charges at an ethics hearing, hours after withdrawing from his presidential election contest against incumbent Sepp Blatter

As he walked into FIFA House in Zurich, the head of Asian football sidestepped questions about whether he paid bribes during the campaign.
Blatter was also answering a summons in the gravest corruption crisis of his 13-year reign, which has seen FIFA's reputation tarnished by repeated allegations of vote-buying and financial wrongdoing.
"It's a disaster for football and I hope when June 1 comes and the election will be over, then all the discussion about corruption is finished and FIFA can go back to normal," Franz Beckenbauer, who retires as a member of FIFA's executive committee next week, told the BBC.
"I don't know what's going on in the next days, but in general it's my opinion it's very, very bad." Blatter could get an unopposed run at a final four-year term at Wednesday's election if cleared of allegations that he ignored payment of campaign bribes.
Qatari bin Hammam and FIFA Vice President Jack Warner allegedly paid some Caribbean voters at a meeting in Warner's native Trinidad three weeks ago. The two confederation bosses deny wrongdoing and have suggested a plot by Blatter supporters.
FIFA said Sunday that all three have individual hearings before the ethics panel, which can suspend them from football duties.
Arriving earlier Sunday was American official Chuck Blazer, whose evidence file implicating his FIFA executive committee colleagues bin Hammam and Warner sparked the corruption crisis.
Blazer, Warner's longtime No. 2 at the CONCACAF regional body, spent more than an hour at FIFA headquarters before leaving.
Bin Hammam, who ran for the presidency after helping Qatar secure hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup, announced his withdrawal in the early hours Sunday.
"Recent events have left me hurt and disappointed on a professional and personal level," bin Hammam wrote on his personal website. "It saddens me that standing up for the causes that I believed in has come at a great price, the degradation of FIFA's reputation. This is not what I had in mind for FIFA and this is unacceptable.
"I cannot allow the name that I loved to be dragged more and more in the mud because of competition between two individuals. The game itself and the people who love it around the world must come first. It is for this reason that I announce my withdrawal from the presidential election.
"I pray that my withdrawal will not be tied to the investigation held by the FIFA ethics committee as I will appear before the ethics committee to clear my name from the baseless allegations that have been made against me," bin Hammam said.
At the end of an astonishing week at FIFA's palatial slate and glass headquarters in Zurich, the ethics committee is scheduled to deliver initial findings at 6 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) Sunday.
The ethics probe opens days of scheduled meetings involving FIFA's 208 national members before their annual Congress on Wednesday.
Blazer delivered a file containing sworn statements from some Caribbean football leaders that sparked an explosive round of allegations, denials and conspiracy accusations in the final days of campaigning.
Blatter, bin Hammam and Warner passed up invitations to attend the year's most eagerly anticipated match on Saturday, the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United in London, to focus on their legal defense.
Qatari challenger bin Hammam and Warner, a 28-year veteran at FIFA's high table, are accused of arranging bribes for up to 25 presidential voters on a campaign visit.
Caribbean Football Union members were allegedly offered $40,000 each at a May 9-10 conference in Trinidad, where Warner is a government minister.
Bin Hammam has acknowledged paying travel and accommodation expenses, and conference costs, but denies vote-buying.
Instead, he implicated Blatter's camp in a plot to remove him from the election contest, and fought back by successfully bringing the FIFA president into the ethics case.
According to bin Hammam's formal complaint, Blatter broke FIFA "duty of disclosure" rules because he was apparently aware via Warner that payments had been arranged and "had no issue." Warner dismissed suggestions that the evidence file compiled by John Collins, a former United States federal prosecutor who is now a member of FIFA's legal committee, could end his career within football's ruling body.
"Why should (I) be hanged now and by whom? The American Chuck Blazer? His American lawyer John Collins? Give me a break guys," Warner told reporters at Trinidad's parliament on Friday.
"I will hold my head high to the very end because I am not guilty of a single iota of wrongdoing. Que sera, sera.
I am not remotely bothered." Two Caribbean Football Union staffers from Trinidad, Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, have also been summoned to the FIFA ethics hearing.
Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb will chair the hearing, and present its decisions at a press conference, after Swiss ethics committee chairman Claudio Sulser removed himself because he shares nationality with Blatter. American member Burton Haimes also stepped aside because of long-standing links with Warner and Blazer.
The panel hearing the four cases Sunday will be composed of at least three of the remaining 11 retained members, who include Australian commentator Les Murray and former France international Dominique Rocheteau. Norway, Panama, Papua New Guinea and Senegal are also represented.
Their duties could continue into next week.
FIFA's administration was also assessing allegations leveled in a British Parliamentary inquiry that implicated Warner and five other FIFA executive committee members in seeking bribes and inducements during bidding for 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting rights.
Blatter succeeded Brazil's Joao Havelange, defeating then UEFA president Lennart Johansson at the 1998 FIFA Congress.
Blatter acknowledges that claims of vote-buying surrounded his first election but has always denied involvement.
After facing a challenge from African football president Issa Hayatou in 2002, Blatter was re-elected unopposed for a third successive term in 2007.