LONDON: Mohamed bin Hammam has accused FIFA President Sepp Blatter of acting like a “dictator” in giving him a life ban from football over bribery allegations.
FIFA banned the suspended Asian Football Confederation president Saturday, just months after he helped Qatar win the right to host the 2022 World Cup.
But the Qatari denies giving cash to Caribbean officials in exchange for supporting his bid to become FIFA president and contends that the allegations were made because he was a threat to Blatter’s re-election.
“This is actually the act of the dictators,” bin Hammam said. “You have witnessed through history the dictators, when they think this or that person is a prominent one to replace him, first thing they do they execute him and try to fabricate any allegation against him to jail him or something like that. “I don’t know if Mr. Blatter considers himself a leader or not but the leader doesn’t revenge.”
Hammam also wants the evidence presented to FIFA that led to his life ban from football to be placed in the public domain.
In Monday’s statement posted on his website, the former president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) again denied that he had used cash to obtain votes and reiterated his intention to appeal the suspension.
“If you wish to hear the evidence presented for and against at the hearing in an impartial way, then my lawyers have already said and requested that the transcript should be made available to the media by FIFA so that you can judge the evidence and testimony for yourself,” he said.
“I have nothing to hide and I hope FIFA will not use confidentiality as an excuse.
“After all, FIFA’s record towards revealing confidential information to the media during these proceedings speaks for itself.
“Nonetheless, I am the affected party and I assure FIFA that I will never sue them for releasing the transcript of the proceedings.” “This is the most serious of issues for anyone ,” he added. (Agencies)