Mongolian soccer chief handed five-year ban for accepting bribes
A senior figure in Asian football has been banned for five years for "soliciting and accepting" bribes from former FIFA executive Mohamed Bin Hammam.
Ganbold Buyannemekh, the head of the Mongolian FA and a former member of the Asian football confederation's executive committee, was banned by FIFA's ethics committee for accepting the payments to back Bin Hammam's campaign for the FIFA presidency in 2011.
He also accepted money from Bin Hammam when he was involved in an election to FIFA's executive committee in 2009, narrowly beating Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa - the current AFC president - by 23 votes to 21.
A statement from FIFA said: "The adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA ethics committee, chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert, has decided to ban the president of the Mongolian Football Federation, Ganbold Buyannemekh, from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level for a period of five years.
"Mr Buyannemekh solicited and accepted payments [from Mr Mohamed bin Hammam] in the context of the elections for the FIFA executive committee at the AFC Congress in 2009 as well as the FIFA presidential election in 2011."
Buyannemekh was found guilty of several ethics codes violations including article 21 which covers bribery and corruption.
Bin Hammam's challenge against Sepp Blatter for the FIFA presidency ended weeks before the vote after allegations surfaced of payments to officials in the Caribbean. He was later banned for life by FIFA's ethics committee.
