Oceania ´absorbing´ FIFA´s suspension of officials

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) said on Thursday it needed time to “absorb” FIFA’s decision to suspend two of its most senior officials over an alleged World Cup vote-selling scandal.

World football’s governing body on Wednesday provisionally suspended OFC president Reynald Temarii and Tonga Football Association general secretary Ahongalu Fusimalohi following an expose in a British newspaper.

The pair were among six officials suspended after FIFA’s ethics committee in Zurich viewed more than 90 minutes of video recordings obtained by undercover Sunday Times journalists posing as bid lobbyists.

They are both members of the OFC’s eight-member executive committee, which oversees football in the region.

The Auckland-based OFC — which consists mainly of Pacific island nations — was tight-lipped about the suspensions as it came to terms with the officials’ alleged involvement in a scandal that has rocked world football.

“In alignment with the provisional decisions taken by the FIFA ethics committee today in Zurich, Switzerland, OFC will take time to absorb the information and make no comment until further notice,” it said.

The 11-nation OFC is the poorest and weakest of FIFA’s six global confederations.

It is not allocated an automatic place in the World Cup, meaning its strongest team, usually New Zealand, must qualify through a play-off with a team from another confederation.

However, as OFC president, Temarii sits on the FIFA executive committee and has a vote in determining which country hosts the showcase tournament.

The Sunday Times alleged it covertly filmed Temarii demanding three million New Zealand dollars (2.3 million US) to set up a sports academy in Auckland in return for his support.

Temarii, a Tahitian who once played for French club FC Nantes, denied any wrongdoing ahead of the FIFA suspension.

Fusimalohi, a former journalist, said earlier this week that undercover reporters posing as lobbyists targeted him at a meeting in an Auckland hotel four weeks ago but he soon realised they were fake.

Fusimalohi said he played along with the reporters, discussing receiving a 100,000 US dollar board membership to support one country’s bid, in an attempt to discover what they were up to.

“I found it like a joke, enjoying lying to them, because they were lying to me as well,” he told Radio NZ.

Australia, an OFC member until it switched to the Asian confederation in 2006, agreed to provide four million dollars (3.0 million US) in development funding to the OFC last year.

Football Federation Australia said the suspensions had not affected the development programme and it was “confident FIFA will come up with the right actions”.

A spokeswoman for Australian Sports Minister Mark Arbib said FIFA had taken decisive action and the government was awaiting the final findings of the organisation’s investigation.

Former New Zealand striker Wynton Rufer, voted Oceania’s player of the 20th Century, said the scandal was damaging for football in the region and across the globe.

“It’s just shocking,” he told Fairfax New Zealand. “I just think for world football this is very bad news.

“I’m thinking on a world scale because you’ve got December’s decisions on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, so FIFA, I can imagine, would be freaking out completely.”