Fi­fa placed its own pres­i­dent un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion yes­ter­day in a widen­ing bribery scan­dal just days be­fore Sepp Blat­ter is sched­uled to face re-elec­tion against Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam. Fi­fa said Blat­ter, who is ac­cused of turn­ing a blind eye to al­leged bribes be­ing paid to Caribbean vot­ers, must sub­mit a state­ment by to­day be­fore fac­ing an ethics com­mit­tee hear­ing in Zurich to­mor­row. "I can­not com­ment on the pro­ceed­ings that have been opened against me. The facts will speak for them­selves," Blat­ter said in a state­ment re­leased by his cam­paign ad­vis­ers.

With both pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it is un­clear how next Wednes­day's elec­tion will be af­fect­ed. Bin Ham­mam, a Qatari of­fi­cial who has been ac­cused of buy­ing votes, claimed there was "in­creas­ing ev­i­dence of a con­spir­a­cy" against him and said he was con­fi­dent the ethics pan­el will "see through this tawdry ma­neu­ver" to re­move him from the race. Namib­ian judge Petrus Damaseb, who will chair the ethics hear­ing, is sched­uled to de­liv­er the pan­el's ini­tial find­ings at a news con­fer­ence to­mor­row evening at Fi­fa head­quar­ters.

The can­di­dates face be­ing banned if wrong­do­ing is proven, or pro­vi­sion­al­ly sus­pend­ed if the pan­el needs more time to study ev­i­dence. Bin Ham­mam and se­nior Fi­fa of­fi­cial Jack Warn­er were sum­moned Wednes­day to face the ethics pan­el on charges of brib­ing vot­ers dur­ing a Caribbean cam­paign vis­it. The al­le­ga­tions were lev­eled by Amer­i­can Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Chuck Blaz­er. Blat­ter, who is seek­ing a fourth term as Fi­fa pres­i­dent, has de­scribed sug­ges­tions he "mas­ter­mind­ed" the scan­dal to re­move his ri­val from the race as "lu­di­crous."

"In the re­port sub­mit­ted by ... Chuck Blaz­er ear­li­er this week, Fi­fa vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er would have in­formed the Fi­fa pres­i­dent in ad­vance about al­leged cash pay­ments to del­e­ga­tions at­tend­ing a spe­cial meet­ing of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union," Fi­fa said in a state­ment yes­ter­day. Up to 25 del­e­gates who have votes in the elec­tion were al­leged­ly of­fered cash bribes at the May 10-11 con­fer­ence in Warn­er's na­tive T&T, where he is a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. Del­e­gates were al­leged­ly of­fered $40,000 in cash for "de­vel­op­ment projects." "No­body has ever tried to hide the fact that Mr. bin Ham­mam paid for the del­e­gates' trav­el and ac­com­mo­da­tion ex­pens­es and cov­ered the meet­ing's ad­min­is­tra­tive costs," a state­ment on the Qatari of­fi­cial's blog said Fri­day.

GENE­VA