The adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee chaired by Hans Joachim Eckert has provisionally banned FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter, UEFA President and FIFA Vice-President Michel Platini, and FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke (who has already been put on leave by his employer FIFA) for duration of 90 days. The duration of the bans may be extended for an additional period not exceeding 45 days. The former FIFA Vice-President Chung Mong-joon has been banned for six years and fined CHF 100,000. During this time, the above individuals are banned from all football activities on a national and international level. The bans come into force immediately.
The grounds for these decisions are the investigations that are being carried out by the investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee. The chairman of the chamber is Dr Cornel Borbély. The investigation into Joseph S. Blatter is being carried out by Robert Torres, the investigation into Michel Platini by Vanessa Allard.
The proceedings against the South Korean football official Chung Mong-joon were opened in January 2015 based on findings in the report on the investigation into the bidding process for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cups™. He has been found guilty of infringing article 13 (General rules of conduct), article 16 (Confidentiality), article 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting), article 41 (Obligation of the parties to collaborate) and article 42 (General obligation to collaborate) of the FIFA Code of Ethics. The Ethics Committee is unable to comment on the details of the decisions until they become final, due to the provisions of article 36 (Confidentiality) of the FIFA Code of Ethics.
The International Olympic Committee called on FIFA to consider a “credible external presidential candidate of high integrity” as Blatter’s replacement. “Enough is enough,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “We hope that now, finally, everyone at FIFA has at last understood that they cannot continue to remain passive. “They must act swiftly to regain credibility because you cannot forever dissociate the credibility of FIFA from the credibility of football.”
Issa Hayatou, the longtime head of the African soccer confederation who was reprimanded in 2011 by the IOC in a FIFA kickbacks scandal, will take over as acting president.
The 69-year-old Cameroonian, who has a serious kidney illness that requires regular dialysis sessions, is currently in Yaounde and is expected to travel to Zurich immediately. Hayatou said he would not stand for president in February but remained committed to the reform process. “We will also continue to cooperate fully with authorities and follow the internal investigation wherever it leads,” Hayatou said in a statement.
