The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) suspended general secretary Alex Soosay on Wednesday amid allegations he ordered a cover-up during an investigation into the organization in 2012.
The Malay Mail last month reported that it had obtained a video from July 2012 which showed AFC financial director Bryan Kuan Wee Hong telling a FIFA investigator that Soosay had asked for any incriminating evidence potentially connecting him to wrongdoing under disgraced former AFC president Mohamed bin Hamman to be concealed.
In a statement on its Web site the AFC said: “A video statement conducted as part of a FIFA investigation was passed to media recently and the AFC has now been able to verify its authenticity.”
The AFC said deputy general secretary Windsor John would take over from Soosay in the short term while an investigation is conducted.
Bin Hammam resigned in 2011 while under investigation for conflicts of interest and financial mismanagement at the AFC, and was later expelled from all soccer activities by FIFA.
In 2012, Pricewaterhouse Coopers conducted an internal audit of the running of the AFC under bin Hammam and questioned the awarding of TV rights and millions of US dollars of payments into AFC accounts “purportedly for the personal use of its president.”
Soosay, who became AFC general secretary in 2009, reportedly asked for Kuan’s help during the audit.
“He suddenly said: ‘protect me’ and I was surprised,” the newspaper quoted Kuan as saying in the video. “He said based on [what] they [Pricewaterhouse Coopers] have found out, have ‘I committed any crime and will they blame me for anything? Anything that you have, is it possible to either tamper or hide it somewhere?’”
Soosay said that there was nothing in the allegations and claimed it was a smear attempt.
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