SAFF suspends WC referee over bribery
UEFA has reservations over plans
RIYADH, May 16, (Agencies): The Saudi Football Federation have banned referee Fahad alMirdasi for life over bribery and urged FIFA to remove him from the pool of referees for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Mirdasi was suspended after admitting offering to take a bribe to influence the outcome of a match, the federation’s disciplinary and ethics committee said late Tuesday.
T h e 32-year-old is one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent referees, having earned a FIFA badge in 2011 and officiating at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 and the Confederations Cup in Russia in 2017.
In a statement to AFP, FIFA said it was looking at the case and seeking more information.
“FIFA notes the information that referee Fahad Al Mirdasi has allegedly been banned for life from all football-related activities by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF),” it said.
“FIFA has requested more information from the SAFF before making any further comments.”
Mirdasi was chosen to referee Saudi Arabia’s Kings Cup final between top clubs Al-Faisaly and Al-Ittihad on Saturday but was pulled from the roster just a few hours before the game.
In a statement, the disciplinary and ethics committee said Mirdasi had approached the president of Al-Ittihad asking him for a bribe to enable his team to win.
“The Ittihad president Hamad Al-Sanayeh called the Saudi Football Federation to state there was evidence that Fahad Al-Mirdasi had reached out via text messages on WhatsApp. He asked for an illegal sum of money in exchange for helping his team win the game,” it said.
The case was referred to the Saudi Football Federation, then the General Authority for Sport — the highest sports authority in the kingdom — triggering an administrative investigation.
Mirdasi confessed to the charges, according to the statement, and it was decided “to deprive him from participating in any football activity for life”.
The committee recommended that Saudi Arabia officially request FIFA to remove Mirdasi from the list of referees participating in the 2018 World Cup and suspend him for life.
“Our integrity is above all considerations,” said Turki AlSheikh, head of the General Authority
Al-Mirdasi
for Sport.
Mirdasi was one of five Arab referees chosen by FIFA to officiate at the 2018 World Cup.
A UEFA council featuring representatives of players, leagues and clubs from across Europe complained on Wednesday that world soccer body FIFA had gone over their heads in drawing up proposals for two ambitious new global competitions.
The Professional Football Strategy Council (PSFC) said it had “serious reservations” about the whole process and criticised “the hasty timing and lack of concrete information” from the sport’s governing organisation.
FIFA has proposed creating a 24-team Club World Cup tournament to be staged every four years as well as a Global Nations League which would culminate in an eight-team tournament — effectively a mini-World Cup — every two years.
According to a FIFA report seen by Reuters, the two tournaments, backed by a consortium of private investors, are expected to generate at least $25 billion over a 12-year cycle.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been trying to rush through the proposals in the already hectic period leading up to this year’s World Cup in Russia.
Following a meeting in Lyon, the PFSC said its members had not been properly consulted and added in a statement that it “unanimously expressed serious reservations about the process surrounding the FIFA Club World Cup and Global Nations League proposals.”
It criticised “the hasty timing and lack of concrete information and underlined the need for a clearly defined procedure, which respect existing structures and decision-making bodies and which involves all key stakeholders.”
“Such proposals must be considered as part of a global reflection on the overall international match calendar and cannot be decided upon in isolation,” the statement added.
The PFSC comment suggested an increasing split between FIFA and European soccer body UEFA.
FIFA has already met individual clubs to discuss the proposals and Real Madrid director Emilio Butragueno has said that the European champions support the plans.
The tournaments could be approved at a FIFA Council meeting in Moscow in June. FIFA did not immediately comment on a report in the Financial Times that it was planning a special meeting before