Fifa announced they have opened an investigation into president Sepp Blatter on Friday as the corruption scandal gripping world football took another extraordinary twist.
A statement from football’s governing body said Blatter had been ordered to appear before Fifa’s ethics committee on Sunday to respond to claims that he knew about alleged cash payments to Caribbean officials.
The ethics proceedings against Blatter follows a request by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohamed Bin Hammam, who is attempting to unseat the Fifa chief at elections in Zurich on June 1.
Friday’s announcement came just two days after Bin Hammam, Fifa vice-president Jack Warner and two Caribbean Football Union officials were summoned to the ethics committee to answer corruption allegations.
Bin Hammam has strongly denied the allegations, and on Thursday called for Blatter to be questioned by the ethics committee, saying the Fifa boss “was informed of, but did not oppose” payments made to Caribbean officials.
Fifa’s statement on Friday said Blatter had been summoned to appear before the ethics committee to answer claims that Warner had told him in advance of alleged payments made at the meeting.
The statement continued: “Subsequently, the Fifa Ethics Committee today opened a procedure against the Fifa President in compliance with Article 16 of the Fifa Code of Ethics.
“Joseph S Blatter has been invited to take position by 28 May 2011, 11:00 CET and to attend a hearing by the Fifa Ethics Committee at the Home of Fifa (Zurich) on 29 May 2011.”
‘Shock’
Meanwhile, Blatter denied involvement in the corruption charges against election rival Bin Hammam on Thursday, expressing his “shock and dismay” at the latest scandal to rock world football.
In a column on the respected InsideWorldFootball blog, Blatter said suggestions that the allegations against Bin Hammam were politically motivated ahead of a June 1 presidential election were “ludicrous.”
“I take no joy to see men who stood by my side for some two decades, suffer through public humiliation without having been convicted of any wrongdoing …,” Blatter wrote in his column.
“To now assume that the present ordeal of my opponent were to fill me with some sort of perverse satisfaction or that this entire matter was somehow masterminded by me is ludicrous and completely reprehensible.”
Football’s world governing body was thrown into uproar on Wednesday after Fifa chiefs announced it had opened a corruption investigation into Asian Football Confederation chief Bin Hammam and Concacaf counterpart Warner.
Bin Hammam, Warner and two officials from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) have been ordered to appear before Fifa’s ethics committee in Zurich on May 29.
British media reports said Bin Hammam and Warner are accused of offering $40 000 cash gifts to national associations at the May 10 and May 11 talks in Trinidad — called to drum up support for his presidential bid — in return for their votes in the Fifa poll.
Bin Hammam strongly denied the allegations saying he believed they would “vanish in the wind” while pointing the finger at Blatter.
“This move is little more than a tactic being used by those who have no confidence in their own ability to emerge successfully from the Fifa presidential election,” he said.
“I am confident that there is no charge to answer and that I will be free to stand in the Fifa presidential election on June 1 as originally planned.” — AFP