Football chiefs snub FIFA bribery questions

FIFA’s ethics committee has summoned all 25 associations to the interviews in Miami, Florida, to be questioned about claims they were each offered or given $40,000 as a bribe by senior FIFA members Mohamed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner.

But early indications suggested as many as 18 were refusing to attend despite warnings from football’s world governing body of consequences if they did not.

Bin Hammam and Warner have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation, which is likely to be completed in mid-July.

The bribes are alleged to have been paid to members of the Caribbean Football Union at a meeting in Trinidad on May 10 and 11.

One Caribbean association has complained to FIFA that the investigation is “biased” towards the United States – one of the defeated bids for the 2022 World Cup.

FIFA member Chuck Blazer, the man who blew the whistle on an alleged bribery scandal, dismissed claims of a conspiracy, and insisted: “The only things that were American in all this were the $100 bills.”

Meanwhile, FIFA says a witness who could back up newspaper claims that Qatar 2022 paid $1.5m to two executive committee members made “unacceptable demands” about giving evidence in person.

Qatar 2022 have denied any wrongdoing, as have the two FIFA members Issa Hayatou from Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast.