Bin Hamman launches appeal against latest Fifa ban

Published on 16/10/2012 00:00

Mohamed Bin Hammam has returned to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to challenge his latest provisional suspension by Fifa.

The 63-year-old Qatari, suspended as Asian Football Confederation president and a Fifa executive member, had a lifetime ban overturned by CAS in July due to lack of evidence.

Immediately after the CAS decision, Fifa announced a new provisional suspension on the grounds that he was the subject of a financial investigation by the AFC. Bin Hammam claims the charges and suspensions are politically motivated, stemming from when he challenged Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency in 2011. His legal team are set to claim an abuse of power by Fifa, and that CAS should order the world governing body to drop the provisional ban.

Numerous other Fifa officials have been the subject of allegations but have not been suspended, including honorary president Joao Havelange, who was named as having been paid kickbacks in a court report into the scandal involving Fifa’s former marketing agency ISL.

Paraguay’s Nicolas Leoz, a Fifa executive committee member, was named in court as far back as 2007 as having received payments from ISL and has not been the subject of any action.

There is also an issue surrounding Larry Mussenden, the president of the Bermuda FA, chairing the Fifa appeals committee which rejected Bin Hammam’s appeal against his provisional suspension last month. Mussenden was a witness in the original case against Bin Hammam and Bin Hammam’s lawyers are expected to raise that as a conflict of interest.