Nigeria Content Online

FIFA
Executive Committee member, Amos Adamu will today at the headquarters
of the football governing body in the Zurich, Switzerland face the
ethics committee.

Reporters from the
British newspaper, The Sunday Times, posed as lobbyists for a
consortium of private American companies who wanted to help secure the
2018 World Cup for the United States. And they filmed Adamu agreeing to
accept $800,000 in return for his vote in the 2018 FIFA World Cup bid.

He is alleged to
have said the money, which is to be paid to him personally, will be
used to build four artificial football pitches in Nigeria.

Adamu was at FIFA’s
headquarters on Monday to meet with the body’s president Sepp Blatter
who promised an “in-depth investigation” into the allegations.

Besides Adamu, who
remained in Switzerland ahead of today’s meeting with the ethics
committee, there are also three other FIFA officials implicated in the
scandal.

They are
Tahiti-born Reynald Temarii, president of the Oceania Football
Confederation, who is alleged to have asked for a payment to finance a
sports academy in New Zealand; Amadou Diakite from Mali, a member of
FIFA’s Referees’ committee who demanded for $1 million,

and Slim Aloulou,
the Tunisian chairman of FIFA’s disputes resolution committee, who said
they should not pay “peanuts,” suggesting bribing Executive Committee
members with as much as one million pounds each.

Taking all steps possible

FIFA said in a
statement that it “has opened proceedings against two current members
of the FIFA executive committee to ascertain whether they have violated
the FIFA code of ethics, and has asked the chairman of the ethics
committee to act without delay to take all possible steps, including
the possibility of provisional measures, should the relevant conditions
be met.

“Investigations are also ongoing in relation to other FIFA officials who may have been involved in the issue in question.”

The FIFA’s ethics
committee is headed by former Swiss striker Claudio Sulser, and they
will also probe suspicions of collusion between unnamed bidding
nations. A press conference has been scheduled for this evening after
the meeting of the ethics committee.

FIFA on Tuesday
however said it was too early to comment on whether a bidding nation
could ultimately be disqualified for a serious breach of the rules.

With only the 24 executive committee members entitled to vote, the
allegations are a blow to the credibility of the bidding process, which
is due to reach a climax on December 2 when FIFA announces the
respective hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments.