ZURICH – FIFA has slapped a three-year ban on the former general secretary of India’s federation, Alberto Colaco, for taking funds during a 2009 controversial election of an executive committee member of the soccer governing body.
FIFA Ethics Committee found 61-year-old Colaco guilty of accepting a payment in the context of the elections for former Asian Football Confederation (AFC) chief Mohamed bin Hammam’s FIFA executive committee seat in the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur in May 2009.
Bin Hammam brushed aside current AFC chief Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain 23-21 in the elections. Allegations of vote buying from both candidates’ supporters marred the voting process, and eventually FIFA imposed a life ban of football-related activities on bin Hammam, Press TV reported.
“The adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert, has decided to ban the former general secretary of AIFF Alberto Colaco, from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level for a period of three years,” FIFA said in a statement.
Last month, FIFA banned Ganbold Buyannemekh, the head of the Mongolian Football Association and a former member of the AFC’s executive committee, five years for accepting the payments to back bin Hammam’s campaign for the 2009 election of the FIFA executive committee and the FIFA presidency in 2011.