‘Suspended’ Platini will not attend FIFA hearing – 2 plead not guilty
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PARIS, Dec 16, (Agencies): Suspended European soccer chief Michel Platini will not attend Friday’s FIFA ethics committee hearing in protest at what he condemns as a political process designed to prevent him running to lead the world governing body, his lawyers said on Wednesday. Platini was provisionally suspended for 90 days on Oct 8, alongside outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter, over a suspicious payment from FIFA to Platini, deepening a corruption scandal that has engulfed soccer’s ruling body. The ethics panel is set to rule on their cases, and could impose much longer bans than the provisional suspensions if it finds the men guilty of violations.
Blatter is due to appear on Thursday. Both men have denied any wrongdoing. Platini’s lawyers objected to comments in French newspaper L’Equipe by ethics committee spokesman Andreas Bantel that the former France captain would be sidelined for “several years”. “Michel Platini … has decided not to attend his hearing at the FIFA ethics committee on Dec 18, 2015, as the verdict of this ethics committee has been announced in the press last weekend by one of its spokespersons, Mr Andreas Bantel, in disregard of all fundamental rights, starting with the presumption of innocence,” the lawyers said in a statement. By his decision to boycott the hearing Platini “intends to show his deepest indignation towards a process which he considers as uniquely political and designed to prevent him from putting himself forward for the FIFA presidency,” the lawyers said in their statement.
Meanwhile, Two soccer bosses including a former president of Honduras pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to US charges they took bribes in exchange for media and marketing contracts in a scandal that has rocked the business of global soccer. Rafael Callejas, who was president of Honduras from 1990 to 1994 and later became president of its soccer federation, flashed a thumbs-up to someone in the audience as he left a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Juan Angel Napout, a Paraguayan and former president of the South American confederation CONMEBOL, pleaded not guilty at a separate hearing. The two came to the United States voluntarily after their indictment on bribery charges was unsealed on Dec 3. They are among 41 people and entities charged in a US corruption sweep that has sent soccer’s world governing body FIFA into an unprecedented crisis.
In a related news, Peruvian authorities have opened a probe into the current head of the Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) and 65 other people related to the corruption scandal rocking FIFA, officials said Tuesday. A source familiar with the case said prosecutors were examining bank accounts, income and expenses of the FPF and some of its leaders on suspicion of using sports activities to launder money. They include Edwin Oviedo, the federation’s current head, and its sports manager, Antonio Garcia Pye, as well as heads and former heads of several Peruvian clubs, according to a list seen by AFP.
Prosecutors were reportedly trying to determine whether they were part of a money-laundering scheme allegedly headed by former federation chief Manuel Burga, who was arrested earlier this month on an international arrest warrant. Burga is among 16 men whose indictments were announced in Washington on December 3 amid a widening multi-million dollar corruption scandal engulfing world football governing body FIFA. They are all from the South American Football Federation (CONMEBOL) and the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF). Burga, who is awaiting extradition to the United States, was alleged to have received payments from the owner of TV TyC, Alejandro Bruzaco, in return for rights to air various editions of the Copa America tournament.
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