FIFA judges imposed life bans on two former soccer federation presidents for financial misconduct, including one who stayed in office since being sanctioned in 2011 as part of a notorious election bribery scandal in the Caribbean. During the pandemic in 2020 FIFA said it would make up to $1.5 billion available in grants and loans.
Montserrat’s long-time soccer leader Vincent Cassell was charged with “abuse of position, systemic conflicts of interest” and misuse of FIFA and federation funds, FIFA said in a statement on Friday. The former president of the Maldives soccer federation, Bassam Adeel Jaleel, was expelled from the sport for “misusing FIFA Covid-19 Relief Plan funds for his personal benefit,” FIFA said.
FIFA installed an emergency management team last February this year after they left. Cassell and Hughes continued to run the Montserrat soccer body, which is currently entitled to get at least $2 million each year from FIFA’s World Cup profits. Hughes was ordered to pay 150,000 Swiss francs ($184,000), FIFA said. Both Cassell and Jaleel, who was elected like Infantino in 2016, were presidents of their federations the next year during the FIFA congress in Bahrain.
FIFA said Ageel’s charges related to “facilitating and concealing misuse of FIFA funds, using falsified documentation and failing to cooperate” with the ethics investigation. Infantino told his audience in a keynote speech in Manama, “We don’t want you,” if they were corrupt. “If there’s anyone in this room or outside of this room who still thinks he can enrich himself,” Infantino said in 2017, “that he can abuse football, I have one clear and strong message to tell him: Leave football and leave football now.”
