FIFA bans Caribbean official Klass for 26 months

Posted Saturday, September 24, 2011 by YAHOO Sport

ZURICH (AP)—FIFA banned Caribbean soccer official Colin Klass for more than two years Friday for his part in a bribery scandal involving former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam.

Klass was found guilty of three breaches of the governing body’s code of ethics, including breaking confidentiality rules and not disclosing “evidence of violations of conduct.”

FIFA said in a statement that Klass, the president of Guyana’s soccer federation, was barred from any soccer-related activity for 26 months.

FIFA expelled Klass through October 2013 and also fined him $5,500. He can appeal. Klass will lose his seat on FIFA’s futsal and beach soccer committee and the presidency of Guyana’s football federation, which he has led since 1989.

FIFA is investigating another 15 Caribbean officials it suspects were offered or accepted $40,000 cash payments to back bin Hammam’s challenge to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Those cases are likely to be heard next month.

Klass was the only one of the 16 to be suspended pending a hearing after FIFA cited “consideration of the specific information received on this matter.”

He is a longtime ally of former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner, who ran Caribbean soccer for three decades until resigning in June. FIFA then dropped its investigation into the Trinidad and Tobago government minister’s role in bin Hammam’s campaign visit to Port of Spain in May.

Klass, who sat on the Caribbean Football Union executive committee, attended the meeting where members heard the Qatari candidate’s pitch.

Whistleblowers’ statements said Klass was present as officials later lined up to receive a gift distributed by CFU staffers. Witnesses said they were given brown envelopes filled with four piles of $100 bills.

The case against Klass was prepared by investigators hired by FIFA from FGI Europe, an agency led by former FBI director Louis Freeh.

Tarnished by the scandal, bin Hammam withdrew his candidacy three days before the FIFA election in June, though he denies the allegations.

Blatter was left unopposed to receive a fourth four-year presidential term. He was endorsed by 186 of FIFA’s 208 national members, including most Caribbean islands. On Oct. 21, Blatter is to provide details of his promised anti-corruption project to clean up soccer and its damaged image.