The FIFA official who picked the
sites for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup games is suspended from all
football-related activities for seven years.
The world football governing body
said on Monday that this followed a FIFA Ethics Committee internal hearing.
“The adjudicatory chamber of the
independent Ethics Committee, chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert, has decided to
ban Harold Mayne-Nicholls.
“He is banned from taking part in
any kind of football-related activity at national and international levels for
a period of seven years,’’ it said in a statement.
Mayne-Nicholls is the former
chairman of the Bid Evaluation Group for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups and
a former president of the Chilean Football Association.
FIFA did not release any details of
the decision, quoting a confidentiality clause in its Code of Ethics.
The football body is facing
corruption probes by investigators in the U.S. and Switzerland, where the
organisation is based.
On Thursday, the U.S. filed formal
requests to extradite seven FIFA officials detained on U.S. bribery charges in
Switzerland.
The group of mostly Latin American
officials were arrested in Zurich in May on suspicion that they took over 100
million dollars of bribes.
It added that the bribes were in
return for the award of media, marketing and sponsoring rights for football
tournaments in the U.S. and Latin America.
Swiss prosecutors were also investigating
accusations of foul play in the selection of Russia and Qatar as the venues for
the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
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