GENEVA — FIFA banned six more Caribbean officials on Friday for their part in an alleged bribery plot involving former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam.
The exiled officials include Patrick John, the former prime minister of Dominica, who was barred from all football activity for two years and fined 3,000 Swiss francs ($3,300), FIFA said
Montserrat Football Association president Vincent Cassell was suspended for 60 days by the FIFA ethics committee. Four other officials received bans of seven to 45 days.
Gordon Derrick of Antigua and Barbuda was reprimanded, clearing him to be a candidate in the upcoming Caribbean Football Union presidential election.
FIFA said it dropped charges against three more officials who resigned from football. Cases against two others were closed.
The officials were allegedly offered or received $40,000 cash payments during Bin Hammam’s campaign visit to Trinidad in May to support the Qatari candidate against FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
Bin Hammam withdrew his election bid after the scandal broke and was later banned for life by FIFA’s ethics panel. He has pledged to challenge the ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
FIFA has banned a total of 11 Caribbean football leaders and two CFU staffers in the corruption scandal.
Four more officials have been reprimanded and five received warnings.
Six officials including Jack Warner, the former FIFA vice president and CFU leader, evaded football’s justice by resigning all their positions in the sport. Warner retained his post as a Trinidad and Tobago government minister.
“Should they return to football official positions, their cases would be examined again by the ethics committee,” FIFA said in a statement.
FIFA has not specified the exact charges faced by the officials sanctioned.
Under FIFA’s code of ethics, officials are not allowed to accept cash gifts and must report suspected corruption.
In other suspensions, Raymond Guishard of Anguilla was banned for 45 days and fined 300 Swiss francs ($330).
Noel Adonis of Guyana got a 30-day ban and was fined 300 Swiss francs; Tandica Hughes of Montserrat was banned for 15 days but not fined; Everton Gonsalves of Antigua and Barbuda got a one-week ban and fined 300 Swiss francs.
Derrick was fined the same amount and could now face two other candidates in the CFU poll. It was scheduled this Sunday in Jamaica but was postponed because of the CFU’s financial problems.
A fourth candidate, FIFA disciplinary committee member Horace Burrell of Jamaica, got a six-month ban with three months of the term suspended from FIFA’s ethics panel last month.
In Friday’s rulings, FIFA said it shelved cases against Oliver Camps, the Trinidad and Tobago football president, Lionel Haven of the Bahamas and Patrick Mathurin of St. Lucia after they resigned.
FIFA’s ethics panel, which met over four days this week, cleared Philippe White of Dominica and Damien Hughes of Anguilla of wrongdoing.
