Five officials, including "three long-serving FIFA executive committee members," are being investigated in the corruption probe into the bidding contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, according to Graham Dunbar of the AP. A person familiar with the cases confirmed the names Thursday after the five were identified in European media reports. The current FIFA board members under investigation are FIFA VP Angel Maria Villar of Spain, Michel D'Hooghe of Belgium and Worawi Makudi of Thailand. The others under suspicion are former German player Franz Beckenbauer and Harold Mayne-Nicholls of Chile. Beckenbauer was a FIFA voter when the board chose Russia to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar secured the 2022 tournament. He was provisionally suspended during the World Cup in June for "initially refusing to help" Garcia's probe. FIFA also filed a criminal complaint to Swiss federal prosecutors against unnamed individuals cited in Garcia's investigation report, adding to "a sense of disarray about the wider World Cup investigation." FIFA said it "cannot confirm or deny any such information" about the five named, and referred questions to the ethics panel (AP, 11/27).
BANNED FOR BRIBE: DEUTSCHE WELLE reported FIFA banned Indian footballing official Alberto Colaco from the sport for three years. Colaco had been the former general secretary of India's national football federation, known as the AIFF. A sub-committee of the FIFA ethics committee, led by Hans-Joachim Eckert, found Colaco guilty of accepting "a payment in the context of the elections for the FIFA Executive Committee at the AFC Congress in May 2009." Colaco's ban, “which applies to all football activity” at national and int’l level, starts immediately (DW, 11/27).
