Former Football Association of Thailand president Worawi Makudi has vowed to push FIFA to lift its ban on him after an appeals court in Bangkok overturned his conviction for forgery.
Worawi, who had a long and tumultuous tenure in charge of Thai soccer, was last year banned for five years by FIFA following his conviction in July 2015.
He was found guilty by a Thai court of forging documents during a re-election campaign as head of the Football Association of Thailand.
Photo: AFP
FIFA’s five-year ban was for both that conviction and for failing to cooperate with their own investigation.
However, on Friday, Thailand’s Appeals Court overturned the forgery conviction and the soccer club that made the initial complaint, Pattaya United Football Club, said it would not take the case to the Thai Supreme Court.
Worawi yesterday said FIFA had rushed their decision to ban him before he had exhausted all his legal appeals.
“They [FIFA] have to accept the decision from the [appeals] court,” he said. “I don’t know why they were so rushed to make a decision at that time because I told them to wait for our legal proceedings [to finish].”
At a news conference on Friday, Worawi’s lawyer Narinpong Jinapak said he would file a case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport if FIFA refused to lift the ban.
“It has been proven that Worawi Makudi, the former president of the Football Association of Thailand, is not guilty as charged. He is clean,” he said.
Worawi was a FIFA executive committee member for 18 years until May 2015 — including for its 2010 vote for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups.
A long-time ally of disgraced former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, he had in the past faced down fraud and bribery allegations, as well as a petition by tens of thousands of soccer fans urging Thailand’s junta to kick him out.
After his conviction, a millionaire former Thai police chief won the election to head up Thai soccer.
One of his first moves was to appoint the current police chief to head up Thailand’s top league sparking questions over how the country’s top serving officer would have enough time to do both jobs at once.
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