Oceania Football hit with another ban

WELLINGTON: FIFA has slapped a three-month ban on a top Oceania Football Confederation official, undermining the scandal-hit organisation’s insistence it has cleaned up its act.

World football’s governing body revealed Thursday that it had suspended OFC vice-president Lee Harmon after an investigation into the resale of tickets at last year’s World Cup in Russia. It said Harmon, who is a member of the powerful FIFA Council and head of the Cook Islands Football Association, would also pay a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs ($19,800).

FIFA did not reveal further details of Harmon’s offences but said his punishment had been determined after a plea bargain. It comes after FIFA last week suspended former OFC president David Chung for six years for corruption.

FIFA’s Ethics Committee found Chung, who resigned from the OFC last April, “offered and accepted gifts” and “acted under a conflict of interest”. The Papua New Guinea businessman’s downfall was reportedly related to an NZ$15 million (US$10 million) sports hub the OFC was developing in Auckland.

Oceania, the smallest and weakest of FIFA’s six continental confederations, is comprised largely of small Pacific island nations. It has a long history of governance problems, although Chung’s successor as president, Lambert Matlock of Vanuatu, said they had been addressed.