The man in charge of Asian soccer, once a candidate to oust FIFAPresident Sepp Blatter as the sport's worldwide leader, enriched himself andhanded out hundreds of thousands of dollars to friends and relatives, accordingto an audit obtained by The Associated Press.
Mohamed bin Hammam, a 63-year-old Qatari whose life ban from football wasoverturned in a sports court earlier this week, is accused of using the AsianFootball Confederation bank accounts to conduct his private affairs.
The audit was prepared by the international accounting firmPricewaterhouseCoopers and dated July 13. A copy of the report was obtained bythe AP; its contents were confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of thereport who spoke on condition of anonymity because it hasn't been made public.
The report offered rare details of the usually secretive accounts ofnot-for-profit football bodies handling hundreds of millions of dollars. And itportrayed a man who was running Asian soccer like a family business,negotiating contracts on his own and mingling his personal and AFC bankaccounts.
The audit was especially critical of bin Hammam's use of AFC accounts forpersonal expenses, although there was no evidence of direct payments to binHammam.
"It is highly unusual for funds (especially in the amounts detailed here)that appear to be for the benefit of Mr. Hammam personally, to be deposited toan organization's bank account," the audit said.
He received millions of dollars from individuals linked to AFC contracts,according to the audit, and spent tens of thousands of dollars on items like ahoneymoon for his son and dental work, haircuts and cash payments for hisfamily.
It found he spent $700,000 from AFC coffers on himself and his family,including $100,000 for his wife, $10,000 on a Bulgari watch for himself andnearly $5,000 for his daughter's cosmetic dentistry.
Payments were also made to Asian, African and Caribbean football officials,including $250,000 to Jack Warner, the longtime strongman of Caribbeanfootball.
"The arrangement with Mr Hammam's use of the sundry debtors account is, inour view, highly unusual and reflects poor governance," the audit said."This use by Mr Hammam of the sundry debtors account continued even afterthe external auditor's recommended that it be stopped. Our review indicatesthat it was common belief that this account was for Mr Hammam personally andall funds flowing through it were his personal monies.
"We question why Mr Hammam would conduct his personal financialtransactions through the AFC's bank accounts when the documents we have seenindicate that he already has several personal bank accounts in variouscountries," the audit said.
The Asian governing body, which he has led since 2002 was advised to seek"legal advice in respect of ... whether the actions of Mr. Hammam, andother parties identified in this report, constitute criminal and/or civilbreaches." Bin Hammam was suspended for 30 days by the AFC followingreceipt of the report last week.
Bin Hammam was not available for comment. His United States lawyer said theallegations were a FIFA tactic to block his return to world football.
"If there were ever any question about the political motives behind FIFA'svendetta against Mr. Bin Hammam, it has been answered by the outrageous andbaseless new charges that FIFA and AFC are bringing against him," lawyerEugene Gulland said in a statement.
The audit found that a contract for commercial rights with World Sports Groupand its subsidiary World Sports Football were no-bid contracts that were"considerably undervalued." A $14 million payment from companies withstakes in WSG, Al Baraka Investment and Development Co. and InternationalSports Events Company, was made to the AFC for the "personal use of itspresident," the report said.
Bin Hammam also approved several lucrative, no-bid contracts for commercialrights, including one for Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera Satellite Network.
The audit said its review of the AFC accounts found that it routinely handedout tens of thousands of dollars in cash to federation presidents and theirrelatives. Most of it went to their personal bank accounts and none of it wasfor football related expenses, it said.
Gaurav Thapa, whose father heads the Nepalese federation, received $100,000while a Filipino football official Jose Mari Martinez received $60,000 and had$11,226 in hospital expenses paid. Another $50,000 went to an East Timoresefootball official Francisco Kalbuadi Lay, the audit found.
Another $25,000 went for tuition expenses for a Bangladesh football federationspokesman and $20,000 to cover the cost of cancer treatment for thefederation's general secretary.
Also, nearly $2,000 was spent by Bin Hammam to buy 14 shirts for Blatter andnearly $5,000 went toward the purchase of suits for Issa Hayatou, the CAFpresident.
The acting head of the AFC called for an end to spending abuses.
"I think this development also makes one thing very clear to all of us -there is no place for unethical practices anymore in AFC," ActingPresident Zhang Jilong said in his opening address Thursday to an executivecommittee meeting. "I ask this ExCo (executive committee) to prevent anyabuse of power and misuse of privileges by any office bearer. I ask this ExConot to allow anyone to compromise the image of AFC."