FIFA ethics investigator seeks to ban Qatari official

A FIFA ethics investigator has recommended that a senior Qatari official should be banned from the game for at least two-and-a-half years and fined 20,000 Swiss francs (about $20,676).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the official is being banned over allegations he failed to cooperate with an inquiry.

The recommendation, announced by the global football body’s ethics watchdog on Friday, however did not give details on the inquiry.

The official it named — Saoud Al-Mohannadi, vice-president of the Qatar Football Association (QFA) — was not immediately available for comment.

The FIFA watchdog only said the inquiry was not linked to the awarding of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar.

This was one of the cases at the centre of wider investigations and allegations which have rocked the football organisation since last year.

“The investigation against Al-Mohannadi concerned his failure to properly cooperate and provide truthful information to the investigatory chamber,” the FIFA panel said in a statement.

The spokespersons for the QFA and for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Organising Committee both declined to comment.

The punishments against Mohannadi, who is also QFA’s former general secretary, were recommended by one of the FIFA ethics panel’s investigators, Djimbaraye Bourngar, the statement added.

Bourngar’s report now goes to the FIFA Ethics Committee’s adjudicatory chamber.

Switzerland has opened a criminal investigation into the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter was banned from all football-related activities in December along with the then European football boss, Michel Platini.

The bans were imposed for ethics violations related to a payment of two million Swiss francs FIFA made to Platini with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.

Several dozen football officials, including former FIFA executive committee members, and entities were also indicted in the U.S. on corruption-related charges last year.(Reuters/NAN)