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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—Mohamed bin Hammam should step down from the Asian Football Confederation over vote-buying allegations and FIFA’s entire executive committee must be replaced in the wake of former vice president Jack Warner’s decision to quit, a former Asian football executive said Tuesday.

Peter Velappan, the AFC’s general secretary from 1978-2007, said Tuesday that bin Hammam should leave the AFC for the sake of the organization.

“He should just resign because of the allegations,” Velappan said. “It would be good for football. This has been going on for so many years. He should follow Warner, strike a deal with FIFA and say goodbye.”

AFC President bin Hammam of Qatar and Warner were suspended by FIFA last month after bribery allegations during bin Hammam’s campaign to become FIFA president. Warner, of Trinidad and Tobago, resigned from FIFA on Monday, putting an end to his investigation by its ethics committee.

But Velappan said bin Hammam was just “the tip of the iceberg” and he said FIFA needed to be cleaned up from top to bottom starting with the 24-member executive committee. He said they all should go, including bin Hammam allies Vernon Manilal Fernando of Sri Lanka and Thailand’s Worawi Makudi, who has been accused of engaging in “improper and unethical” conduct in the 2018 bidding for the World Cup that was won by Russia.

“The whole of the FIFA development structure is rampant with corruption both at the FIFA level and at the confederation level,” Velappan said in a phone interview from Singapore. “It’s best to give football a break.”

Bin Hammam and two Caribbean Football Union employees are still provisionally barred from duty while facing accusations of paying bribes to up to 25 Caribbean voters during the Qatari’s failed campaign to unseat FIFA President Sepp Blatter. All have denied any wrongdoing.

In the wake of the vote buying allegations, bin Hammam withdrew from the FIFA presidential race last month leaving Blatter to run unopposed. He was elected to a fourth and final four-year term.

Bin Hammam and Warner have denied arranging bribes, and the Qatari challenger alleged that supporters of Blatter conspired to remove him from the election contest.

Bin Hammam has not commented since he was suspended, and a spokesman for the AFC could not be immediately reached for comment.

David Triesman, the head of England’s 2018 World Cup bid until last May last year, told British lawmakers last month that Makudi, Warner, Nicolas Leoz and Ricardo Teixeira and engaged in “improper and unethical” conduct during the World Cup bidding process. All four denied the allegations.

Labels: CALLS, Former, Hammam, official

ZURICH, June 1 (Reuters) - Suspended Asian soccer chief Mohamed Bin Hammam was denied access to the FIFA congress on Wednesday after being unable to file his appeal, the Qatari said in a statement on Wednesday.

The 62-year-old was suspended pending an investigation into alleged bribery during his campaign to become FIFA president.

“I am very sad and disappointed over what has happened in the last days. I will never accept how my name and my reputation have been damaged. I will fight for my rights,” he said in a statement. (Reporting by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

Labels: Congress, denied, entry, Hammam, Reuters

ZURICH (AP)—Mohamed bin Hammam says it’s “unfair” that he was denied entry to the FIFA Congress because he’s provisionally suspended while bribery allegations are investigated.

Bin Hammam says in a statement that FIFA denied his request to give him detailed legal reasons for the suspension so that he could challenge it.

He says he has been punished before being found guilty.

Bin Hammam, the Asian football president, was suspended Sunday with FIFA colleague Jack Warner while FIFA investigates whether they bribed Caribbean voters during his abandoned presidential campaign.

FIFA’s Congress opened Wednesday, with President Sepp Blatter poised to be re-elected.

Labels: exclusion, Hammam, Protests, unfair

BEIJING (AP)—The acting boss of Asian football said FIFA had no right to suspend Mohamed bin Hammam from his role as head of the Asian Football Confederation, a Chinese newspaper reported Tuesday.

Zhang Jilong was installed as the AFC’s interim president while bin Hammam is suspended from all football duties pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations he offered bribes in return for votes in his now-abandoned bid for the FIFA presidency.

“FIFA suspended bin Hammam but he is still the president of AFC,” Zhang was quoted to say by the China Daily, citing quotes from the Chinese news website Sina.com. “FIFA has no right to prevent him from acting his role in AFC.”

The quote had been removed from Sina.com’s news article by Tuesday afternoon.

Despite Zhang’s remarks, the AFC confirmed in a statement early Tuesday that he would act as its president during bin Hammam’s suspension.

Zhang, 59, is the AFC’s most senior vice president. He ran for a seat on FIFA’s executive committee earlier this year, but lost out in a vote at January’s AFC congress in Doha. He also served on the 2008 Beijing Olympics organizing committee.

FIFA’s 208 member nations are due to vote on the presidency on Wednesday, even though incumbent Sepp Blatter is the only candidate.

FIFA vice president Michel Platini had raised the prospect of a walkout by Asian members in protest at bin Hammam’s treatment, although the Qatari is far from universally popular within Asian football, only being re-elected to the AFC’s top job by the slimmest possible margin earlier this year.

Labels: Hammam, right, suspend

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—FIFA executive Mohamed bin Hammam plans to appeal against his suspension over bribery allegations, claiming Monday that he was being “punished before I am found guilty.”

A FIFA ethics committee on Sunday provisionally suspended bin Hammam and FIFA vice president Jack Warner pending a full inquiry into allegations Caribbean football leaders were paid $40,000 each to back the Qatari’s now-abandoned bid for the FIFA presidency.

In a statement released Monday, bin Hammam said he has lodged a request with FIFA to file his appeal by Tuesday so that he could be reinstated ahead of the June 1 congress where FIFA executives will vote for a president.

The 62-year-old bin Hammam had been incumbent Sepp Blatter’s only challenger but the Qatari withdrew from the race on Sunday hours before the ethics committee issued its ruling.

“The way these proceedings have been conducted is absolutely not compliant with any principles of justice. I am punished before I am found guilty,” bin Hammam said in his statement Monday.

“I get the impression that the outcome of these proceedings had been defined from the very beginning as it has been made evident at the press conference on Sunday evening at which FIFA General Secretary Jerome Valcke showed his bias very clearly. This is not acceptable as the FIFA Ethics Committee is supposed to be a fully independent body.”

Valcke said in a statement that “it is fully incorrect—and quite disappointing—to say that I have an influence on the FIFA Ethics Committee and its proceedings.”

In a statement issued early Tuesday morning, the AFC confirmed that its most senior vice president, China’s Zhang Jilong, will be acting president of the confederation, according to its statutes, during bin Hammam’s provisional suspension.

“We, the members of the AFC Executive Committee, express our deepest concern at the latest developments within FIFA and that involves the AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam,” the statement said. “We will be following the investigation as it takes its course. We hope the outcome of the investigation will be in the best interests of football in Asia and beyond.”

Bin Hammam’s complaints about the process were echoed across the Middle East, where he has some of his strongest support. Football federations and sports columnists decried the ruling, complaining it was unfair and appeared to be orchestrated by Blatter to ensure he remained in office.

Newspapers in Egypt were especially critical of the 75-year-old Blatter, who is seeking a fourth term as leader of world football’s governing body.

The Al-Dustour daily said bin Hammam had “surrendered to the tyranny of Blatter.” Al-Gomhuria called the Swiss president a “sly fox who cannot be easily hunted” and compared him to the country’s longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted from office earlier this year.

AFC vice president Yousuf al-Serkal, an ally of bin Hammam from neighboring United Arab Emirates, said he didn’t believe the charges and considered them part of a bid to remove bin Hammam from the presidential race.

“I think bin Hammam has been mistreated,” al-Serkal said. “Bin Hammam is the right person who should have been elected to the presidency of FIFA from the point of view of change.

“The way he was treated, I think it was unfair. All the allegations were just from a report. There were no evidence as such. I feel sorry for the person I have known for long time as a decent person.”

Al-Serkal and others around the region also complained that bin Hammam’s rights were violated because he was suspended before any ruling had been issued on the bribery allegations.

After a day-long hearing Sunday, the FIFA ethics panel said there was sufficient evidence to further investigate allegations that bin Hammam and Warner, the CONCACAF President, offered the bribes to more than two dozen delegates at a Caribbean football association meeting on May 10-11 in Trinidad.

The payments were allegedly made to secure votes for bin Hammam in his campaign to unseat Blatter. If found guilty, bin Hammam and Warner could be expelled from FIFA and banned for life from all football activity.

“We believe it is a very disappointing decision by the ethics committee because so far they don’t have solid evidence against bin Hammam,” said Munem Fakhoury, a former member of Jordan’s national team who is also a top football executive in the country.

“Bin Hammam is a very professional individual with an excellent record and what is happening today is truly unfair for him and for the world of football.”

Sports columnist Gamal Holail, writing in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Gomhuria, felt bin Hammam was a victim of Blatter’s effort to sideline any challengers.

“Blatter wants to defame the reputations of the honest people like Bin Hammam,” Holail wrote, “so he can remain sitting on the presidential chair for life and rule the empire of the international football until death. But his dented reputation has revealed his false essence and it is time for him to leave.”

Said al-Mlaiki, sports analyst and reporter in Iraq, said he felt most Arabs would see the allegation as part of a Blatter smear campaign—which could backfire on him in the Middle East.

“I think that Blatter has committed a mistake by targeting bin Hammam in such way because he will lose the support of some Arabic and Islamic football federations,” he said. “The timing of the actions against bin Hammam ahead of the FIFA elections arouses questions and suspicions.”

But there was at least one football federation that welcomed the investigation and would accept whatever ruling FIFA makes.

“I wish this didn’t happen but also I am happy because there is accountability for all those who might breach the law,” said Taj El-Deen Fares, the deputy head of the Syrian Football Federation. “I am afraid of the repercussions of this issue on the fame of the international federation and its unity.”

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo, Roufan Nahhas and Sameer N. Yacoub in Jordan and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.

Follow Michael Casey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcasey1

Labels: Appeal, bribery, Hammam, scandal, suspension