FIFA bans Thai football chief, Hayatou delays arrival

Worawi Makudi, the president of the Football Association of Thailand and a former member of Fifa’s executive committee, has been suspended by Fifa’s ethics committee from all football activities for 90 days.

Blatter was relieved of his duties by FIFA’s ethics committee as Swiss prosecutors investigate him for criminal mismanagement.

The Football Association of Thailand on Tuesday said it would postpone this weekend’s election of a new chief, a day after the incumbent Worawi Makudi was suspended by a FIFA ethics probe.

‘The case is now the subject of formal investigation proceedings’.

FIFA has been in turmoil since May 27 when 14 football officials and sports marketing executives were indicted in the United States as part of a criminal investigation into the allocation of media, marketing and sponsorship rights for football tournaments.

The 63-year-old Makudi is a former member of the Federation Internationale de Football Association executive committee and has been FAT president since 2007.

He was found guilty in July by a Thai court of forgery in his re-election as head of the FAT in 2013.

Another allegation was that Blatter made a “disloyal payment” of 2 million Swiss francs ($2 million) to Michel Platini, the president of European football’s governing body UEFA, in February 2011.

His suspension follows that of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, Uefa chief and Fifa vice-president Michel Platini and FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke – all of whom have been provisionally suspended for three months amid corruption investigations. He is due to leave office on February 26.

Platini, the UEFA president and a front runner to succeed Blatter, is also appealing his ban. This payment, “at the expense of FIFA”, was allegedly for work performed between January 1999 and June 2002.

“This decision against Worawi Makudi followed a request from the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee, Dr Cornel Borbely”.