FIFA Against 16 Caribbean Football Union Officials

The FIFA Ethics Committee has today (11 August 2011) opened ethics proceedings against 16 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials in regard to apparent violations of the Code of Ethics connected to the investigation of the cases related to the special meeting of the CFU held in Trinidad & Tobago on 10 and 11 May 2011.

One of the officials, Colin Klass (Guyana), has been provisionally suspended from taking part in any football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) by the chairman of the Ethics Committee, Claudio Sulser (Switzerland), after consideration of the specific information received on this matter.

Judge Robert T. Torres, a member of the Ethics Committee, has been entrusted by the committee with supervising and directing the investigation. With the approval of the committee, he has engaged Freeh Group International Europe (FGI Europe) and the secretariat of the Ethics Committee to assist the committee with this task. The Ethics Committee will contact the 16 officials to arrange further interviews in connection with these proceedings.

It is important to note that the investigations are still ongoing, and that it is therefore possible that further proceedings could be opened in the future.

The 16 officials are as follows:

David Hinds, Mark Bob Forde (Barbados)
Franka Pickering, Aubrey Liburd (British Virgin Islands)
David Frederick (Cayman Islands)
Osiris Guzman, Felix Ledesma (Dominican Republic)
Colin Klass, Noel Adonis (Guyana)
Yves Jean-Bart (Haiti)
Anthony Johnson (St. Kitts and Nevis)
Patrick Mathurin (St. Lucia)
Joseph Delves, Ian Hypolite (St. Vincent and the Grenadines)
Richard Groden (Trinidad and Tobago)
Hillaren Frederick (US Virgin Islands)

Yesterday (10 August 2011), the committee decided to ban Lisle Austin from taking part in any football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) for a period of one year for lodging a claim related to football matters in front of the ordinary courts in the Bahamas, constituting a breach of art. 64 par. 2 of the FIFA Statutes. Lisle Austin had been provisionally suspended by the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee on 4 July 2011, the date from which the one-year suspension will start to be counted.

The Disciplinary Committee also decided that should Lisle Austin not withdraw the claim lodged in front of the ordinary courts in the Bahamas definitively and irrevocably, he will remain banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level in accordance with art. 22 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code for as long as the legal proceedings in ordinary courts are pursued.