Sri Lankan Fifa official banned

PRESIDENT Sepp Blatter’s push to clean up Fifa flushed out another potentially-corrupt official yesterday when executive committee member Vernon Manilal Fernando of Sri Lanka was banned from any football activity for three months.

A source close to Fifa said the 63-year-old was banned while Michael Garcia, the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, examines an alleged misuse of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) funds.

Fernando was a close ally of former Fifa executive committee member and AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was banned from football for life by Fifa following his involvement in the 2011 bribery scandal when he was standing against Blatter for president.