Japan's football chief has demanded a detailed explanation from football's world governing body FIFA on its decision to ban Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohamed bin Hammam for corruption.

"There is a need for FIFA to give us the reason for the life ban," Japan Football Association president Junji Ogura said, according to Japanese newspapers on Wednesday.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sport...how/9381489.cms

if any one truly believes ANYTHING Herr Bladder says, then I have a nice bridge to sell them. The man give corrupt 3rd word corrupt dictators a bad name.

A very well written short article that includes some new insight.

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1666682

Despite the FIFA ban, he has refused to quit as AFC president and on Friday, the continental body's executive committee declined to cut him loose, deciding to delay a decision on whether to hold an election to replace him.

The 19 delegates who met Friday in Kuala Lumpur agreed to establish a committee to "assess the current situation and advise and guide" acting AFC president Zhang Jilong in the business of the confederation. No date for the formation of the committee was announced.

"What FIFA needs at moment is to show that it is really zero tolerant and investigating all allegations and sanctioning as far as there is proof of breach of the code of ethics," Transparency International sports adviser Sylvia Schenk said. "If they are just punishing bin Hammam and not looking into other cases, this will not send a message of zero tolerance. It will give a bad impression. So I'm quite sure FIFA will continue. They have to."

Poland, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said on Friday that sports ministers from 27 nations who are due to meet in October will debate the issue of “good governance,” a theme provoked by ongoing corruption allegations involving FIFA.

“We are plain that our priorities are good governance in sport,” he said. “When there are allegations of corruption, it’s a big problem.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/sports/soccer/30iht-fifa30.html

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has hinted for the first time that the scandal involving bribery charges against Mohamed Bin Hammam could lead to an investigation of Qatar’s successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

“Now, at this moment, we are not touching the Qatar World Cup. But we are going step by step into the matters we have to realize and if somewhere through this Solutions Committee they should say we have to have a look at that, then we will do that,” Mr. Blatter said.

An investigation into the Qatari bid could lead to the Gulf state being deprived the right to host the 2022 World Cup.


Mr. Blatter confirmed earlier this year that Qatar had entered into an illegal agreement with Spain and Portugal, which were jointly bidding for the 2018 World Cup, to swap votes but dismissed it as unimportant because it had not influenced the outcome of the vote. The Spanish-Portuguese bid like that of England, where feelings are bitter, lost out to Russia.

Allegations that Qatar invested in the home countries of some executive committee members, while possibly true, are not necessarily in violation of FIFA bidding rules. The issue of whether it would be ethical to do so is an issue that FIFA rather than Qatar would have to address by tightening its rules.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/07/29/159991.html

$#!% sometimes just happens ahe?

As far as the local Socialist and Green Party politicians are concerned, they're through with FIFA. The duo has presented a motion to Zurich's city council that would require FIFA to clear out. "FIFA under Blatter is not an institution that deserves to get preferential treatment from this city," says Glättli. And Badran adds: "FIFA damages Zurich's image."

"It's just not acceptable for the city to be subsidizing FIFA. It may be a not-for-profit, but it's one that earns billions and benefits from significant tax relief," says Badran who grew up on the Sonnenberg and learned to read here, with the help of her sister, sitting under an apple tree.

"It's galling that we have to try to save money by cutting food budgets at old peoples' homes while we're subsidizing FIFA," says Badran. Adds Glättli: "We're throwing money at FIFA, which is a global concern completely lacking in transparency."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2085958,00.html#ixzz1Taq0brKN

With three more members of the executive committee - Thailand’s Worawi Makudi, Sri Lanka’s Malinal Fernando and yet another African, Egypt’s Hani Abou Rida, now in the sights of the Ethics Committee, over the Bin Hammam affair, the ‘night of the long knives’ is far from over.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Sport/Football/5736124-182/story.csp

Most times we just really don't know what is the really important thing going on behind the scenes. Some times you just have to attack the flank to open up the main problem in the middle.
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England beware: Teixeira, Fifa's next president, makes Blatter look saintly

Accused by Panorama of taking bribes, accused by Lord Triesman of wanting a bribe, accused by many others of both and more; Teixeira is well used to being splattered by the brown stuff and then cultivating it to produce the sweetest-smelling of roses.

It's a plan he hatched with Joao Havelange, the visionary who made Fifa exactly the revered governing body it is today. It says so much about Teixeira's cunning and scheming abilities that he has maintained the patronage of this footballing Don. After all, he divorced Havelange's daughter and remarried a female 30 years his junior, whom he started dating when she was 19.

"Ricardo wanted to run [for the Fifa presidency] now, but I told him, 'Put on a good World Cup, treat everyone well, and they'll vote for you out of gratitude'."


"In 2014, I'll be able to get away with anything," said Teixeira. "The most slippery, unthinkable, Machiavellian things. Denying press credentials, barring access, changing game schedules. And you know what? Nothing will happen. You know why? Because in 2015 I'm out of here. It'll all be over."

Yes, Ricardo will be out of the Brazilian federation, but in terms of the world it certainly wouldn't be over. He would duly replace Sepp Blatter and very soon we would hark back to the comparatively clean Fifa era of the saintly Swiss.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/footb...ly-2329609.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/02/fifa-hits-back-criticism-parliament

In a letter published on Tuesday, Jérôme Valcke, Fifa's general secretary, warned John Whittingdale, who heads parliament's culture, media and sport committee, that politicians "should act and speak on facts, and not on unsubstantiated headlines".

"It is one thing for the media to not be interested in stories which kill previous headlines by so-called investigative journalists, but it is another entirely for your committee to neglect this turnaround," Valcke said.

Whittingdale, though, said that the committee only publishes evidence submitted to it, while the retraction was made in a press release.

"We published the evidence we were given – we didn't say if it was true or untrue, we just said it needs to be properly investigated," Whittingdale said. "It seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Had we not done that I don't think the whistleblower would ever have made her retraction."

I'm not sure but this could be the calm before the storm, no real news for a few days?

Is it not about time to whip some hiding Caribbean behinds?