FIFA dragging its feet in ‘scandal’

BERLIN, Aug 7, (RTRS): World soccer’s governing body FIFA has been dragging its feet and needs to urgently widen the investigation into a abuse scandal involving Afghan women players, national coach Kelly Lindsey said in a letter to FIFA boss Gianni Infantino.

The former president of the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF), Keramuddin Keram, was banned from football in June for life after FIFA’s ethics committee found him guilty of abusing his position and abusing female players.

Keram, also a former FIFA Standing Committee member, was accused by at least five Afghan female football players of repeated sexual abuse from 201318. He was also fined one million Swiss francs ($1.03 million).

But Lindsey and Khalida Popal, the team’s programme director, said in their letter that several other individuals had been named by the players as being directly or indirectly linked to the case and no action had been taken against them.

Victims and whistleblowers were in fear of repercussions, they said.

“...the accounts and evidence provided to you named other individuals as well, and referred to a widespread culture of abuse, with complicity at all levels of the AFF,” they wrote in their letter to Infantino dated Aug 6.