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Published : 14 Apr 2023, 09:16 PM
FIFA has banned Abu Nayeem Shohag, general secretary of Bangladesh Football Federation, from all sorts of football-related activity at national and international level for two years for using false documents to justify payments made with funds of the global body.
Following an ethics committee investigation, FIFA on Friday also ordered Shohag to pay fines of 10,000 Swiss francs in a month.
Specifically, the FIFA Adjudicatory Chamber of the Ethics Committee said he misused FIFA Forward funds and negligently allowed the use of forged or falsified documents to support the transactions of the BFF paid with FIFA funds.
Shohag, 40, has been working as the BFF general secretary since January 2013 after his tenure as acting general secretary since 2011.
He has been a FIFA Match Commissioner for Asia since October 201 and served as a member of the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber from October 2017 until August 2021.
After FIFA representatives visited BFF, Shohag and three other Bangladeshi officials were summoned to the FIFA headquarters in February.
BFF officials had said it was a routine inspection.
The FIFA committee said the FIFA Compliance Subdivision informed the Investigatory Chamber in 2020 that the external consultant Control Risks Group Limited had identified in its report several issues in regard to the bidding procedures at BFF.
It advised a forensic review at the BFF by an audit firm. After the audit, the firm submitted the report covering the period from 2017 to 2020.
Martin Ngoga, chairperson of the Investigatory Chamber, determined in April 2022 that there was a prima facie case that Shohag had committed violations of the FIFA Code of Ethics. Ngoga designated John Tougon to lead the proceedings against Shohag as chief of investigation.
Shohag submitted his position to the Investigatory Chamber in June 2022. The investigation proceedings were closed in October 2022 and the final report was transmitted to the Adjudicatory Chamber.
