FIFA Monday slapped a lifetime ban on the disgraced former boss of Brazilian football, Jose Maria Marin, after a US court convicted him of massive corruption. The 86-year-old Marin was one of the key figures swept up in the graft scandal that began with a series of stunning arrests in 2015 and subsequently upended world football. He had already been sentenced to four years in a US prison after a court in New York found him guilty in connection with nearly $6.6 million in bribes from sports marketing companies in exchange for contracts to broadcast major tournaments. But the decision from FIFA's independent ethics judges definitively confirms that Marin is finished in football. FIFA's ethics committee said in a statement that Marin had participated in various bribery schemes. Judges "banned him for life from all football-related activities (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level", a FIFA statement said. FIFA also imposed a 1 million Swiss franc ($1 million) fine against Marin, once one of the most powerful figures in world football. Following his May 2015 arrest at a luxury hotel in Zurich, Marin spent five months in a prison in Switzerland before being extradited to the United States. He posted bail of $15 million and spent two years living in luxury at Trump Tower, the Fifth Avenue skyscraper best known for housing the penthouse and company headquarters of the US president. But his life of excess dramatically came to a halt at his sentencing in August, when he broke down in tears over the "nightmare" his family had endured. African soccer whistleblower fired African soccer's ruling body has fired a senior official after he made corruption accusations against the organization's president in a potential blow to FIFA's efforts to clean up the game after a raft of scandals worldwide. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) sacked general secretary Amr Fahmy after the Egyptian accused his boss Ahmad Ahmad of bribes and misuse of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to officials and an internal document. The document, sent on March 31 by Fahmy to a FIFA body that investigates alleged ethics breaches and seen by Reuters, accuses Ahmad of ordering his secretary-general to pay $20,000 bribes into accounts of African football association presidents. They included Cape Verde and Tanzania. The document also accused Ahmad of costing CAF an extra $830,000 by ordering equipment via a French intermediary company called Tactical Steel. Furthermore, it accuses him of harassing four female CAF staff, whom it did not name; violating statutes to increase Moroccan representation within the organization; and over-spending more than $400,000 of CAF money on cars in Egypt and Madagascar, where a satellite office has been set up for him. Senior CAF officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Fahmy was fired after compiling the document with the allegations against Ahmad, from Madagascar, who took the top African soccer post two years ago. CAF confirmed to Reuters that Fahmy lost his job at an executive committee meeting in Cairo Thursday, prior to the draw for the Africa Cup of Nations Finals. It declined to give more details about the reason for his dismissal. "There's no explanation. It's the Executive Committee decision," communications director Nathalie Rabe said in an email exchange with Reuters Sunday. Ahmad, who is also a vice president of world governing body FIFA, did not respond to requests for comment on the allegations against him. Requests for comment to the football presidents and authorities of Cape Verde and Tanzania, and to Tactical Steel in France, were also not immediately answered. Fahmy was replaced by Mouad Hajji, from Morocco. The allegations against Ahmad follow a string of scandals related to FIFA's practices in Latin America and Asia in recent years, which have led to the indictment and jailing of numerous senior football administrators. — Reuters
