Fifa have extended the provisional ban of former Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohamed Bin Hammam, world football's governing body said on Thursday.
The 63-year-old Qatari had a lifetime ban overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July due to lack of evidence over corruption allegations, but was banned again provisionally by Fifa who launched a new probe by ethics committee investigator Michael Garcia.
The final report was completed on December 4 and submitted to the adjudicatory chamber of the Fifa Ethics Committee for examination.
In it Garcia requested the imposition of provisional measures against Bin Hammam “given the extraordinarily complex nature and the considerable scope of the present case”.
“Based on the report, the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber has decided to provisionally ban Bin Hammam given that a breach of the FCE (Fifa Code of Ethics) appears to have been committed and that a decision on the main substance of the case may not be taken early enough,” Fifa said in a statement.
“Given the seriousness of the violations of the FCE as alleged in the final report, Garcia said in his letter to the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber that it was imperative that Bin Hammam remained banned from football during the pendency of any decision on these charges.”
The ethics committee want to look for fresh evidence to relaunch the affair which saw Bin Hamman receive a lifetime ban.
Bin Hammam, who challenged Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency last year, was accused of trying to buy votes of Caribbean officials. He withdrew his candidacy and Blatter was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term as Fifa president.
Bin Hammam was then banned for life after being found guilty of breaking seven articles of Fifa's ethics code, including one on bribery. – AFP