FIFA rejected Mohamed Bin Hammam's appeal Thursday against a life ban from football for allegedly offering bribes during his aborted campaign to unseat Sepp Blatter as president of the sport's governing body. The Qatari official posted Twitter messages to say he would challenge FIFA's decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, “where from now on I will be equal to my rival.” “To be fair to the Appeal Committee members though, as a consequence of our experiences with the Ethics Committee, we didn't make serious efforts to prove my innocence this time around,” Bin Hammam wrote. FIFA said its three-man appeal panel met for seven hours before upholding a July ruling by the ethics body to expel Bin Hammam. “The sanction of being banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at national and international level for life has therefore been maintained,” the governing body said in a statement. Bin Hammam, who did not attend Thursday's hearing, said he now saw “light at the end of the tunnel and I am heading confidently towards it.” “Mr. Bin Hammam has already gone on record stating that he was not optimistic of justice prevailing from the FIFA appeals process but this was a protocol to enable him to obtain access to CAS,” his American lawyer Eugene Gulland said in a statement. Bin Hammam must go through FIFA's internal appeals system before taking his case to CAS in Lausanne. Bin Hammam is preparing a second case at CAS, to challenge the appointment of Chinese official Zhang Jilong as his interim replacement as Asian Football Confederation president while he fights his ban. Zhang will take Bin Hammam's place as a FIFA executive member for the first time on Oct. 20-21, when Blatter will outline his promised anti-corruption project. FIFA said Bin Hammam's appeal was judged by Francisco Acosta, the Ecuador Football Federation general secretary, Fernando Mitjans of Argentina and Augustin Senghor, president of the Senegalese federation.
