Bangladesh Football Federation's general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag is set to appeal against World football governing body Fifa's decision to ban him from all football activities for two years.
A press release from Shohag Saturday also stated that the decision of Fifa's Adjudicatory Chamber of the Ethics Committee regarding falsification and forgery of documents is biased and targeted towards the BFF.
“As per the rules, Shohag shall appeal the biased and targeted decision communicated on April 14, 2023 before the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) which is an independent institution, based in Lausanne, Switzerland involved in resolving legal disputes in the field of sport,” stated the media release prepared by a law agency titled A Hossain & Associates.
“Since 2018, Fifa has been auditing and monitoring financial transactions of BFF and all Fifa expenditures have been incurred by BFF upon obtaining approval from Fifa.
The procedure is that BFF applies for release of Fifa funds for expenditures relating to football, Fifa reviews the application(s) and all documents (including quotations), thereafter only after approval from Fifa, the funds are released to BFF and thereafter the expenditures are incurred.
In the instant case, the exact procedure was followed and all the quotations were sent to Fifa and only upon receiving their approval, the fund was released by Fifa and the expenditures were thereafter incurred by BFF.
During the hearing, BFF supplied evidences of such approvals from Fifa for each of the transactions, however the Adjudicatory Chamber most illegally did not take into consideration such critical evidence and passed the decision communicated on April 14, 2023, which makes it apparent that the decision is not only erroneous and defective but also targeted and biased towards BFF.
In the decision, the Adjudicatory Chamber held that there was no misuse of Fifa funds, and also expressly stated that that Shohag had presented a clean record, pointing out that he lacked any known precedents or previous records of any infringements of the Fifa regulations.
Further, it also expressly acknowledged that there was no indication in the Final Report that, first, the services or goods ordered had not been received, second, that they had been paid for at a price higher than the market price or third, that they could not be paid with Fifa Forwards Funds.
It expressly stated in the Decision that there is no indication that the Fifa Forwards funds were misused or used for purposes not permitted by the applicable regulations.
Similarly, there is no evidence that Fifa or the BFF was harmed or suffered any financial loss.
In addition, the Fifa Adjudicatory Chamber also expressly stated that there is nothing on file suggesting that Shohag forged or falsified the quotations, but rather that he did not examine the quotations, even then based on pure speculation, by expressly avoiding material evidences, the Adjudicatory Chamber held that false and/or falsified documents were used in the BFF procurement process.
Had the Adjudicatory Chamber considered the evidences independently and fairly, especially the most critical Fifa approvals of all the expenditures and transaction raised in the Final Report, then the instant Decision could not be passed.
It appears that the Adjudicatory Chamber simply acted as a stamping house by upholding the decision of the Fifa Investigatory Chamber without applying its mind independently and judiciously.”
