South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon yesterday said he is facing a 15-year suspension by FIFA’s ethics committee that has “sabotaged” his campaign for the FIFA presidency, but he denied any wrongdoing and vowed to continue his bid to lead soccer’s world governing body.
Speaking at a news conference in Seoul, Chung read out a nine-page statement, addressing the charges against him, which he dismissed as a ploy “to prevent me from running for the president of FIFA.”
“The fundamental reason why I am being targeted is that I aimed straight at the existing power structure of FIFA,” Chung said.
Photo: AFP
Bound by confidentiality rules, FIFA’s ethics committee has not made any statements on Chung’s case and there was no immediate response to his comments yesterday.
Chung said he was being charged with violating six articles from FIFA’s Code of Ethics, which he said stemmed from his “support” for South Korea’s 2022 World Cup bid and his proposal to launch a Global Football Fund (GFF).
“Ethics committee is not charging me with criminal offense, and it is not charging me with ‘bribery,’ ‘corruption’ or ‘conflict of interest,’ he said. “All that the ethics committee is relying on is that I have not fully ‘cooperated’ or ‘collaborated’ with the investigation and that I had violated ‘confidentiality’ requirements.”
Chung said his proposals for the establishment of a GFF were in line with FIFA’s rules at the time and had already been investigated and cleared.
He provided copies of two letters, dated Nov. 10, 2010, and signed by former FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke, stating that FIFA agreed the integrity of the bidding process had not been affected so the matter was deemed closed.
“Yet the ethics committee has now asked for 15 years of sanction for this,” Chung said. “With the campaign season starting, even issues that had been closed many years ago, have a way of being revived.”
The scion of Korea’s Hyundai industrial conglomerate, Chung vowed to fight the charges, adding “ultimately, I will prevail and will be vindicated.”
In November last year, Chung was named in FIFA’s ethics report into the bidding process for the World Cups in 2018 and 2022, in which South Korea made a bid to host.
The report followed an investigation led by US lawyer Michael Garcia and looked into letters that Chung sent, in late 2010, to FIFA executive committee members about a proposal to establish a GFF for soccer development.
“According to those letters, Korea intended to raise US$777 million from 2011 to build new football infrastructure and renovate existing facilities,” said the report, which added that the fund was linked to South Korea’s 2022 bid.
“There was nothing unusual about GFF. The GFF was perfectly in line with the football development projects that FIFA asked every bidding country to propose as part of their bid requirement,” Chung said. “No money or personal favors were exchanged in relation to GFF and no such charges were made against me.”
Chung, a 63-year-old billionaire who previously served as a FIFA vice president, formally announced in August that he was running for the FIFA presidency.
The incumbent, Sepp Blatter, is to stand down in February next year.
Blatter has run FIFA for the past 17 years and recently become the focus of a criminal investigation, but has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.
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