By Andrew Warshaw
September 19 – The eagerly awaited hearing into 15 Caribbean officials charged for their alleged involvement in football’s most infamous cash-for-votes scandal is expected to take place between October 10 and 14, insideworldfootball has learned.
The 15 are all under investigation after attending Mohamed Bin Hammam’s campaign visit to Trinidad in May at the time he was still planning to take on Sepp Blatter for the FIFA Presidency.
A source close to FIFA’s Ethics Committee told insideworldfootball that the 15 are almost certain to be summoned to FIFA headquarters in Zurich at the Committee’s scheduled October meeting to answer charges relating to $40,000 (£25,000/€29,000) bribes allegedly offered by Bin Hammam.
The hearing is expected to take up to four days given the number of officials being probed, it is understood.
Meanwhile, this Friday (September 23) the Ethics Committee will look into the case of a sixteenth Caribbean member, Colin Klass (pictured) of Guyana, suspended last month pending a full inquiry.
Klass was the only one of the 16 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) members to be sanctioned ahead of any ethics committee hearing after FIFA cited “consideration of the specific information received on this matter.”
insideworldfootball has learned that the information concerned relates to an attempt to obstruct the investigation into both Bin Hammam – banned for life by FIFA – and Jack Warner, the two former powerbrokers at the centre of the bribery claims.
Warner, who was president of CONCACAF and FIFA’s longest-serving vice-president, resigned from all footballing activities after being charged, while Bin Hammam is planning to take his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Klass, a member of FIFA’s futsal and beach soccer committee, is a long-time ally of Warner and attended the notorious Trinidad meeting.
After being suspended Klass, the most senior of all the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials under the spotlight, said: “My position remains the same and I will be outspoken about it.
“They are going about things in the wrong way.
“I fear no evil because I am not worried.”
Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1737701748labto1737701748ofdlr1737701748owedi1737701748sni@w1737701748ahsra1737701748w.wer1737701748dna1737701748
Related stories
September 2011: Bin Hammam takes appeal to CAS in relentless quest for “justice”
September 2011: Bin Hammam’s appeal to life ban thrown out
September 2011: Warner slams FIFA for “devastating” lives in its clean up act
September 2011: FIFA drop multi-million pound TV deal with Warner’s firm
September 2011: Mihir Bose – After Bin Hammam’s race claim, Blatter needs to prove he really is a citizen of the world