Bin Hammam dismisses 'kangaroo court' for life ban

Hammam has been banned from football for life (REUTERS)

Mohamed bin Hammam has dismissed his life ban from football as being imposed by a "kangaroo court" and described the sentence as an act of revenge for his attempt to challenge Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency.

The Qatari was found guilty by Fifa's Ethics Committee in Zurich on Saturday on bribery charges and becomes the most senior Fifa official to be banned – and the fourth from the ruling Executive Committee, including Jack Warner, who resigned during the investigation. He will put his case to Fifa's appeals committee – "another kangaroo court," according to Bin Hammam – then take it to the Court of Arbitration to Sport (CAS) and if that too goes against him, he will move on to the Swiss courts.

Bin Hammam said yesterday: "The ban for life, that shows how much these people are angry, how much they are full of revenge." Asked by the BBC if he thought the ethics committee was a kangaroo court, Bin Hammam added: "Do you see any other thing? I think that is quite evident what kind of court it was."

Chuck Blazer, another Ex-co member and the man who first brought the allegations to Fifa's attention, said yesterday: "It's a very good day for football in that it has been demonstrated that the process we adopted five years ago with the ethics code and committee is able to work."

Bin Hammam did not travel to Zurich to defend himself, but continues to deny the charges that he bribed officials of the Caribbean Football Union in May.

Petrus Damaseb, the Namibian judge who chaired the inquiry into Bin Hammam, suggested on Saturday that further investigations into other Fifa figures may well follow.

In a separate inquiry, Blazer was cleared by the Ethics Committee of racial discrimination but warned as to his future conduct after being judged to have made untrue comments at a Concacaf meeting in Zurich in May.