* Germany’s legend Franz Beckenbauer and Spanish senior VP of FIFA, Angel Maria Villar are also indicted

Amos Adamu: FIFA fresh sanctions looms over unethical conduct

Two years after completing a three-year ban from soccer, former FIFA executive committee member Nigeria’s Amos Adamu faces being sanctioned again.

FIFA’s ethics body named the Nigerian among several soccer officials subject to “formal investigation proceedings relating to the suspicion of infringements.”

Further details were not provided.

Adamu’s previous ban came after being implicated in corruption allegations concerning the fiercely criticized votes selecting Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Adamu was filmed in a British newspaper sting in 2010 asking undercover reporters posing as bidders for $800,000 to influence his World Cup hosting vote, saying he wanted the money paid to him personally so he could finance soccer fields in Nigeria.

He was suspended and not allowed to take part in the December 2010 votes, then banned for three years by FIFA and failed in two appeals against his sanction.

Adamu is not the only football administrator to face FIFA’s sanctions,.

Beckenbauer: Under ethics probe

FIFA has also confirmed that Germany great Franz Beckenbauer and senior vice president Angel Maria Villar have been investigated for wrongdoing and their cases have been passed to the adjudicatory chamber for a verdict by the ethics judge.

Details of the case were not provided.

Although both Beckenbauer and Villar have previously been identified as targets of an investigation, the announcement on Wednesday from FIFA’s ethics committee is the first public confirmation of their names.

Angel Maria Villar: No angel in FIFA at all

The public disclosure of Villar’s name is potentially embarrassing for UEFA, given that the Spanish federation president headed meetings last week of European soccer leaders while Michel Platini is suspended.

With secrecy on cases now lifted, FIFA’s ethics committee also confirmed that suspended FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke is under investigation “related to the suspicion of misuse of expenses and other infringements of FIFA’s rules and regulations.”

Valcke was initially put on leave last month when FIFA ordered an investigation into alleged unethical conduct after he was accused of taking part in a deal for black market sales of tickets to 2014 World Cup matches.

Two weeks ago, FIFA’s ethics committee then provisionally suspended Valcke for 90 days, pending the full verdict in the case.

Valcke had been FIFA’s top administrator for the past eight years under President Sepp Blatter, who has been suspended over separate allegations.

Meanwhile, former FIFA Vice President Chung Mong-Joon is accusing the governing body of sabotaging his bid to succeed Sepp Blatter after banning him for six years from soccer.

The South Korean was investigated over the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contest and he complains in a statement Wednesday that FIFA’s ethics committee still has not provided him with the written reasons for imposing the punishment two weeks ago.

Chung failed in a bid to obtain an injunction from a Zurich court against the ban.

The deadline to submit candidacies to FIFA for the Feb. 26 election is on Monday.

If any officials have current suspensions lifted before then, FIFA’s election watchdog could still declare candidates eligible.

Chung said: “I cannot maintain my candidacy because of the unjust sanctions, but I cannot appeal those sanctions or get an injunction from the Swiss court because I do not have the reasoned decision that FIFA’s ethics Committee has so far refused to send me.”

Chung says “FIFA continues to sabotage my candidacy for FIFA president.”

*Reported by Daily Mail