THE adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, chaired by Alan Sullivan, has banned a highly respected football administrator.
Wolfgang Niersbach, former German Football Association president, was banned from all football-related activities for a year yesterday.
His immediate ban means he cannot be involved in any football administrative, sports or any other matters on a national or international level. Niersbach, current member of the Fifa Council and the Uefa Executive Committee, was vice-president of the 2006 Fifa World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC).
The adjudicatory chamber, headed by Cornel Borbely, found that Niersbach had failed to report findings about possible misconduct in the awarding of the 2006 World Cup, including potential breaches of the Fifa Code of Ethics (FCE).
Said Fifa in a statement: “However, the present case did not look into possible breaches of the FCE in relation to possible acts of bribery and/or corruption with regard to the awarding of the 2006 World Cup.
“It only evaluated Niersbach’s awareness of these incidents and his failure to report them to the Ethics Committee in a timely manner.”
Fifa says the Ethics Committee found that Niersbach’s conduct, as former association president, World Cup LOC vice-president, current member of the Fifa council and Uefa Exco member, constituted a violation of duty of disclosure, co-operation and reporting, “and conflicts of interest of the code of ethics”.
