Suspended FIFA official Mohamed bin Hammam will face an ethics committee on 22 July to answer allegations of bribery committed during his presidential election campaign, football's governing body said on Wednesday The case against Mohamed bin Hammam, the Qatari president of the Asian Football Confederation, and Caribbean Football Union employees Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester has been built with help from a team of former FBI agents hired by FIFA. "The three officials have received the report on the investigations conducted by the ethics committee since May 29, and have been invited to present their position in writing prior to the meeting," FIFA said in a statement. The ethics panel, chaired by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb, will hear all three cases on 22 July and begin its deliberations the next day. "The parties as well as the ethics committee also have the opportunity to call on potential witnesses," FIFA said. Bin Hammam and the two CFU staffers are accused of involvement in a plot to bribe Caribbean football officials with $40,000 cash payments ahead of bin Hammam's failed election challenge to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Allegations against FIFA vice president Jack Warner, former leader of the CFU and the CONCACAF confederation, were dropped when he resigned from football. FIFA said last month it no longer had authority over Warner, a 28-year veteran of its executive committee, and that he retained a "presumption of innocence." However, a leaked report revealed that FIFA's ethics panel believed it had "compelling" evidence of a bribery plot when bin Hammam and Warner invited CFU members to a 10-11 May meeting in Warner's Trinidad homeland. Whistleblowers from four CFU member countries gave "coherent, credible and detailed" witness statements testifying to the attempted bribery, the report said. The panel found "comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming evidence" that Warner arranged the meeting specifically to enable corruption. It was "impossible" to think Warner was unaware of the payments and their intention to influence how CFU members voted. Bin Hammam allegedly offered cash "at least indirectly and under the pledge of secrecy," intended to influence them to back him against Blatter, the report said. The scandal emerged one week before the 1 June FIFA election, and bin Hammam, Warner and the CFU staffers were then provisionally suspended by the ethics panel pending a full inquiry. All have denied wrongdoing. Bin Hammam withdrew his candidacy three days before the poll, leaving Blatter clear to be elected unopposed at the FIFA congress for a fourth four-year term as the most powerful man in world football.
