Farah Addo ordered to pay damages to FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter

[Tony_Montana]

Zurich, 12 March 2003 -The court injunction prohibiting the President of the Somali Football Federation, Farah Addo, from continuing to make defamatory statements about FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter has been upheld in full by the District Court of Meilen (Switzerland). The court further ordered Addo to pay damages of CHF 10,000 to the FIFA President, and to assume the court costs and the costs of the parties in the amount of CHF 14,948.

At the start of the year, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee suspended Addo from all FIFA activity for a period of two years. In early 2002, Addo had claimed in the media that irregular financial practices were used to help Joseph S. Blatter's election as FIFA President in 1998. Addo also made accusations against FIFA Executive Committee member Mohamed Bin Hammam (Qatar) and implicitly questioned the integrity of the FIFA President.

 

Furthermore, FIFA has had to suspend Financial Assistance Programme (FAP) payments to the Somali Football Federation until further notice. During an audit of the 1999 – 2001 period, this federation was unable to provide documentation to substantiate the use of a large part of the funds it had received.

 

This decision was made during a meeting of the FIFA Finance Committee in Zurich on 21 February 2003, based on the relevant provisions in the FAP regulations. According to these regulations, FIFA can request their external auditors KPMG to conduct an audit of any national association – either on the grounds of suspicion or by drawing lots randomly. If any irregularities are then detected during the audit, or if the use of FAP funds cannot be fully supported by the appropriate documents, FIFA may decide to stop payments to the national associations concerned.

 

An initial audit of the Somali Football Federation for the year 2001 revealed that there was either no documentation at all, or where evidence did exist, it was proved to be insufficient to support the use of 84 per cent of payments. The audit process was hindered by the fact that while the federation is based in Mogadishu, President Farah Addo conducts day-to-day business from Cairo.

 

The Financial Assistance Programme was ratified by the 1996 FIFA Congress in Zurich and has been in operation since 1999. Each national association receives USD 1 million per four-year cycle (originally 1999 – 2002), while each of the six confederations receives USD 10 million.