Bin Hammam's FIFA ban overturned

(CNN) -- The lifetime ban imposed by global
governing body FIFA on the former head of Asian
football has been annulled.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld
Mohamed bin Hammam's appeal against the
punishment handed to him after being found
guilty of bribery by FIFA's ethics committee in July
2011.
The Qatari was accused of issuing bribes to
members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU),
including former North American soccer head Jack
Warner, in exchanges for votes during his ill-fated
FIFA presidential campaign against current chief
Sepp Blatter.
The CAS decision to lift the sanction imposed on
Bin Hammam was based on a lack of evidence,
though the body stressed the 63-year-old had not
been found innocent.
"This conclusion should not be taken to diminish
the significance of its finding that it is more likely
than not that Mr. Bin Hammam was the source of
the monies that were brought into Trinidad and
Tobago and eventually distributed at the
meeting by Mr Warner," said the CAS
statement.
"His conduct, in collaboration with and
most likely induced by Mr Warner, may
not have complied with the highest ethical
standards that should govern the world of
football and other sports.
"The panel is doing no more than
concluding that the evidence is
insufficient in that it does not permit the
majority of the panel to reach the
standard of comfortable satisfaction in
relation to the matters on which the
Appellant was charged.
"It is a situation of 'case not proven',
coupled with concern on the part of the
panel that the FIFA investigation was not
complete or comprehensive enough to fill
the gaps in the record."
The CAS verdict was greeted with unease
by FIFA.
"FIFA has noted with concern the decision
announced today by CAS in the Mohamed
Bin Hammam case," read a statement from the
Zurich-based body, which recently appointed two
crimefighters as part of ongoing reforms aimed at
improving the organization's governance.
Former United States attorney Michael J Garcia
and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert have
been put in place to tackle the allegations of
wrongdoing which have plagued FIFA in recent
years.
"The CAS panel notes that 'FIFA was in the
process of reforming its ethics committee and
that, in the event new evidence relating to the
present case was discovered, it would be possible
to re-open the case, in order to complete the
factual background properly and to establish if Mr
Bin Hammam has committed any violation of the
FIFA Code of Ethics,'" added FIFA's statement.
Earlier this week, Bin Hammam was provisionally
suspended by the Asian Football Confederation,
the organization of which he was president
between 2002 and 2011, following an audit of the
body's accounts.
The suspension related to payments in and out of
AFC bank accounts during Bin Hammam's tenure
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