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Temarii’s FIFA ban ‘to hurt Australia’s bid’

FIFA’s banning of Oceania chief Reynald Temarii from voting on the host nations of the next two World Cups was a blow to Australia’s chances of staging the 2022 tournament, newspapers said on Friday.

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World governing body FIFA said on Thursday it had suspended Temarii and fellow executive committee member Amos Adamu of Nigeria in a bid to stifle damaging fallout over allegations of corruption and ethical misconduct in the race to host football’s 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Because of his close ties to the Oceania region, Tahiti’s Temarii was expected to gift Australia a vote when the FIFA executive meets to decide on the hosts, newspapers said.

But Temarii will now take no part in the December 2 process in Zurich.

FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke confirmed that there will be no replacements for the suspended Temarii and Adamu and that the vote will be left to the remaining 22 committee members.

“With Temarii suspended, Australia will now go into the voting knowing it will have one less vote,” The Australian said.

“It needs 12 votes to win the right to host 2022.”

Football Federation Australia on Friday refused to comment on FIFA’s actions, but said it was happy with the progress of its bid ahead of next month’s vote.

“We don’t comment on FIFA processes but are very confident they will come up with the right options,” an FFA spokesman told AFP.

“We are very happy with our bid and where we are at during this stage of the campaign.”

Australia, which received a highly favourable report from FIFA’s evaluation committee this week, is competing against the United States, South Korea, Japan and Qatar for 2022.

The 2018 tournament will be held in Europe with four candidates in the running — England, Russia and joint bids by Belgium-Holland and Spain-Portugal.

Temarii was suspended for one year for breaching FIFA’s loyalty and confidentiality rules when he was secretly filmed in an undercover sting by reporters from Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, who posed as lobbyists trying to buy votes.

Temarii said he would appeal within the ten-day deadline after FIFA’s ethics body issues its detailed verdict and reasoning.

“It’s clear that we intend to appeal the decision as soon as possible so as to... demonstrate once again our good faith,” he said, accompanied by his lawyer.

Temarii, who is suing the Sunday Times for libel, welcomed the decision to “definitely rule out” allegations of corruption against him raised by the newspaper.