Football
Associated Press 8y

FIFA suspends South African official Kika for 6 years over match-fixing

FIFA has suspended South African football official Lindile Kika for six years as part of a match-fixing investigation involving friendly games ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

Kika, who was the South African Football Association's (SAFA) head of national teams at the time, has been banned from all football-related activities.

FIFA judge Hans-Joachim Eckert found Kika guilty of breaching five sections of the ethics code: general rules of conduct, commission, conflicts of interest as well as loyalty, duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting. But an ethics committee statement did not specifically say what Kika's misdemeanours were.

Kika was among the SAFA officials asked to take a leave of absence in 2012 following a FIFA report into the match-fixing investigation.

FIFA has previously said there was "compelling evidence" that at least one of the warmup games played by South Africa's national team in May 2010 was fixed. No players are suspected of any wrongdoing. The manipulation is believed to be by referees working for the Singapore-based betting syndicate of Wilson Raj Perumal and Dan Tan.

Neither FIFA nor SAFA have publicly identified the game or games under suspicion, but South Africa's 5-0 win over Guatemala and 2-1 win over Colombia in May 2010 -- weeks before the World Cup -- have long been under suspicion because of the high number of penalties awarded.

The case has contributed to the image of South Africa's World Cup being tarnished, with the bid itself now under suspicion following allegations FIFA votes were secured by more than $10 million in bribes.

The suspicion that two unidentified senior South African bid officials -- and FIFA officials who supposedly sought bribes and facilitated payments -- was contained in the indictment released in May by the U.S. Department of Justice that detailed more than two decades of corruption in world football.

FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein has said that delaying February's election would further harm the credibility of the organisation.

The election of the successor to Sepp Blatter is scheduled for Feb. 26 but an emergency meeting of FIFA's executive committee this week is due to discuss postponing it due to the crisis that has struck the world governing body.

Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini, who was due to stand against Prince Ali, have both been provisionally banned by FIFA's ethics committee for 90 days over a £1.35m payment made to the Frenchman.

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