32-team World Cup format intact for Qatar 2022 - Blatter

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Saturday after talks between football chiefs the 2022 World Cup will remain a 32 team competition with no change to the share between the regional confederations.

Europe and South America had feared an attempt to cut their places, but Blatter said: "there is no change."

The decision taken by FIFA's executive committee means that Europe will still have 13 places at the Qatar tournament and Africa five.

Asia and South America each get four places and a chance at a playoff. North and Central America get three places and a playoff chance while the Oceania winner enters a playoff.

Qatar will qualify automatically as the hosts.

UEFA chief Michel Platini had said ahead of the meeting that remaining at 13 places was a "red line" for the European confederation.

Prince Ali bin al Hussein, who challenged Blatter for the FIFA presidency, had proposed increasing the number of teams.

But Blatter said on Friday that the World Cup should "not be touched."

Court overturns Bin Hammam FIFA life ban

The Court of Abitration for Sport on Thursday overturned a life ban imposed by football's world governing body FIFA against Qatar's Mohamed Bin Hammam, citing "insufficient evidence" to impose the penalty.

But a three-member panel who considered the case stopped short of exonerating the 63-year-old, who was accused of offering cash bribes to buy FIFA delegate votes during campaigning to unseat long-standing president Sepp Blatter last year.

Bin Hammam strongly denied wrongdoing in the FIFA presidential challenge last year, maintaining that the $40,000 in unmarked envelopes that were offered during the election campaign to delegates of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) were gifts.

He described the charges and his punishment as politically motivated. A one-time close associate of the powerful Blatter, the two became estranged following a falling-out.

The Lausanne-based tribunal said in a statement on its website: "The CAS has upheld Mr Bin Hammam's appeal, annulled the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee and lifted the life ban imposed on Mr Bin Hammam."

But it added the three-member panel that considered the appeal "was unable to conclude to its comfortable satisfaction that the charges against Mr Bin Hammam were established" and considered the case "not proven".

There was no direct evidence to link Bin Hammam with the money's presence at a CFU meeting in Trinidad and Tobago and CFU chief Jack Warner had initially said the gift was from the federation but later said it was from Bin Hammam, the ruling said.

"No efforts" were made to trace the source of the money but the panel said it was "possible to infer" that Bin Hammam's failure to prove the cash's provenance "might be explained by the fact that it would have confirmed that he was the source".

The CAS panel said it was "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".

In that way "his (Bin Hammam's) 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.

"This is all the more so at the elevated levels of football governance at which individuals such as Mr Bin Hammam and Mr Warner have operated in the past."

The CAS said the panel was applying the law under the tribunal's code but "not making any sort of affirmative finding of innocence in relation to Mr Bin Hammam".

It was "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 lifting of the FIFA life ban does not mean that Bin Hammam -- who helped secure Qatar's successful bid for the 2022 World Cup -- is free to resume footballing activities.

No hiding place for FIFA's Amos Adamu: EFCC

LAGOS- THERE may be no hiding place for disgraced former Director General, National Sports Commission (NSC) and suspended FIFA Executive Committee member, Amos Adamu, as indications have emerged that Nigeria’s anti-graft body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is set to spread its drag net to various parts of the world in its bid to track him down.
Adamu has been banned for three years from all football related activities and fined 10,000 Swiss francs by the ethics committee of FIFA for complicity in a cash-for-votes scandal blown open by Sunday Times of London and for breaching various articles of FIFA Code of Ethics.
Although, the EFCC had said shortly after the news of Adamu’s suspension came on Thursday that he would be interrogated as soon as he returns to Nigeria, it was learnt yesterday the anti-graft agency was looking for a quick avenue to track Adamu as soon as possible.
The Spokesman of EFCC, Femi Babafemi had told Brilafm sports radio that Adamu had refused to return to Nigeria since the commission showed interest in investigating the scandal.
“The chairman of the commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has instructed our operatives in charge of the matter to liaise with FIFA and see how we can get evidence of the whole investigation against Amos Adamu. This is a case that we have been working on since, and the decision by FIFA solidifies our position. Adamu has refused to come to Nigeria since we showed interest in the matter,” Babafemi said.
Meanwhile, FIFA President, Sepp Blatter promised yesterday that a “new FIFA” would choose the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, but admitted that changes would be needed to avoid corruption scandals.
Blatter sought to turn the page on the damaging World Cup bidding and corruption allegations after an executive committee meeting in Zurich, although he admitted that some collusion among FIFA’s decision makers was inevitable.
Nonetheless, FIFA’s president stressed that they were taking on greater responsibility now that world football’s showcase event was gaining more than sporting stature.
“Having this importance also in the economy, then we have a political dimension,” Blatter told journalists. “Now we have to have a look at how to act in the future to avoid such situations, definitely this is an item which is now under scrutiny,” he added, a day after FIFA’s ethics committee banned two executive committee members for one to three years over bribery or misconduct.