FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon speaks during a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, September 3, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
February 10, 2018
ZURICH (Reuters) – Former FIFA vice president Chung Mong-joon’s ban from soccer has been cut from five years to 15 months by sport’s highest tribunal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
CAS said that it had found “mitigating factors” to reduce the South Korean’s ban, imposed for violating FIFA’s code of ethics, and also annulled a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs ($53,197.15).
It said that, as the ban was initially imposed in October 2015, Chung was free to return to football activity immediately.
CAS agreed that Chung, who has denied all wrongdoing, was guilty of ethics violations but to “a far lesser degree than found by the FIFA instances”.
Chung’s plans to stand for the FIFA presidency were torpedoed in 2015 when the governing body banned him from all football-related activities for six years and fined him 100,000 Swiss francs following a probe into corruption.
FIFA’s Appeals Committee subsequently reduced Chung’s ban to five years and cut the fine in half.
Chung, a billionaire scion of South Korea’s Hyundai industrial conglomerate, served as FIFA vice president from 1994 to 2011.
(Writing by Brian Homewood in Berne; Editing by Clare Fallon)
