LONDON (AP) — Mohamed bin Hammam claims FIFA would not have convicted him of bribery and imposed a permanent ban from soccer if he was European.
The Qatari former presidential election opponent of Sepp Blatter was judged to have arranged bribes for Caribbean voters earlier this year.
FIFA’s ethics committee is also investigating 16 Caribbean officials suspected of accepting $40,000 cash bribes from bin Hammam, who has been forced off the governing body’s executive committee.
Now in a letter to the deputy ethics committee chairman, Judge Petrus Damaseb, bin Hammam claims that if he was from Europe neither Blatter nor secretary general Jerome Valcke would “dare lay a finger.”
Bin Hammam accuses Damaseb of being allowed to “slaughter people left and right.”
