Fernando Faces Sanctions in Sri Lanka After FIFA Lifetime Ban

(ATR) Around the Rings is told that Sri Lanka’s former FIFA Executive Committee member Vernon Manilal Fernando will be kicked off the country’s Olympic committee after he was handed a lifetime ban from football.

FIFA handed down the ban on Wednesday after an investigation into corruption allegations. Following the two-day hearing in Zurich, FIFA’s appeals body dismissed Fernando’s appeal to his original eight-year ban imposed in April. It upheld an appeal by Michael Garcia, head of its ethics prosecution arm, to upgrade the Sri Lankan’s ban from football activities to life.

"The lifetime ban has been imposed on Mr Fernando for violations of art. 13 (General rules of conduct), art. 19 (Conflicts of interest), art. 20 (Offering and accepting gifts and other benefits), art. 21 (Bribery and corruption), and art. 42 (General obligation to collaborate) of the FIFA Code of Ethics, 2012 edition," FIFA said in a statement.

Fernando is one of six vice presidents on the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka. He was elected to the position in 2009.

Maxwell De Silva, the NOC’s secretary general, tells ATR that its executive board is likely to ban Fernando from all Olympic activities when it meets at the end of the month. Once the nation’s football federation has notified him of FIFA’s ban, the case will go through the disciplinary committee before that decision is made.

"If FIFA has banned him, we can’t have him here," De Silva said.

He added that Fernando has not attended a single meeting since he was provisionally suspended by FIFA in March pending the outcome of an ethics probe.

FIFA’s investigation into Fernando followed scrutiny of his associations with Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar during the bribery scandal that rocked world football nearly two years ago.

The 63-year-old Sri Lankan was part of the delegation that traveled with the Qatari to Trinidad in May 2011; Thai Worawi Makudi was also interviewed by FIFA investigators.

Bin Hammam was accused of conspiring with former CONCACAF chief Jack Warner to bribe Caribbean Football Union officials in a bid to oust Sepp Blatter from the FIFA presidency. He successfully challenged a lifetime ban handed down by FIFA over the corruption claims at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But the Qatari was again banned for life last December, this time for alleged corruption of Asian Football Confederation finances.

Fernando, who lists his hobbies as "playing the stock market," was a FIFA ExCo member since January 2011. He was also a member of the Asian Football Confederation ExCo and vice president of the Sri Lankan Olympic Committee.

Zhang Jilong of China, who was acting president of the Asian Football Confederation between Bin Hammam’s ban and the election of Bahrain’s Sheikh Salman in May, was installed as Fernando’s Asian replacement on the FIFA ExCo earlier this year. He will continue to serve on the ExCo until 2015 when Fernando’s mandate was due to expire.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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