ZURICH – World football's governing body Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has imposed a 10-year ban on Liberia's Musa Bility, a member of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) executive committee, and fined him $730 000 (R10.2m)
Fifa's punishment of a senior African football official follows financial wrongdoing, including taking funds from a campaign tackling Ebola.
The deadly epidemic killed 11 000 people in West Africa.
The Ebola campaign had the support of several soccer stars to reinforce prevention and awareness in November 2014, when the pandemic struck in Liberia, as well as Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Fifa also found that other funds sent to the Liberian Football Association, which Bility was the head of, were being siphoned off and given to businesses supported by him or his family.
The case goes back to December 2015, when Bility was prevented from being a Fifa presidential candidate after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) upheld a ruling that he failed an integrity check.
Bility's ban from came after he said he would appeal to Cas against a Fifa plan to send its top administrator from Zurich to oversee the troubled African soccer body.
Fifa’s ethics committee has been formally investigating Bility since last May after soccer’s world body audited the financial accounts of the Liberian Soccer Federation (LFA), which he led.
Fifa found conflicts of interest including “various payments made by the LFA to (and received from) entities owned by or connected to Mr Bility and his family.”