May 17 – Asian football’s new independent anti-corruption watchdog is calling on the confederation to launch its own separate probe into the circumstances surrounding the prosecution of former marketing chief Richard Lai.
Lai, a member of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee and former head of the Guam FA, was handed a provisional 90-day ban last month after he pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn court accepting nearly $1 million in bribes, the first time the US-led investigation into sustained malpractise had directly spread to Asia, though Guam is a US territory.
In addition to being a member of the very FIFA body that is supposed to be all about good governance and weeding out the miscreants, Lai was the AFC’s marketing chief and a member of its executive committee.
The Asian Football Confederation’s Independent Head of Integrity Mohammad Ali Al Kamali, elected only last week, has written to the AFC administration stressing the seriousness of the case.
“The allegations contained in Richard Lai’s indictment are, if substantiated, extremely serious. The AFC, which has placed good governance and integrity at the centre of its Vision and Mission, is duty bound to investigate,” he wrote.
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