Statement from Petrus Damaseb

Reacting to allegations from Jack A. Warner against him, Petrus Damaseb has issued the following statement :

"The only thing I remember is an invitation to dinner at the palatial residence of Mr Bin Hammam while I was attending a FIFA Congress in Qatar in 2003, together with other FA presidents, and receiving a watch from Bin Hammam (a customary gift in football) which I still have and treasure and which I accepted to be a gift to me as Namibian FA president and a token and expression of his hospitality and friendship. As NFA president I received many watches as gifts either from host Associations or their functionaries or from FIFA. I was not the president of the NFA when Blatter was first elected in 1998 and had never met Blatter, Warner and Bin Hammam while they were on a ‘worldwide crusade’ (as Warner puts it) for Blatter’s election or re-election as the case may be. It is a pity that Warner has chosen to engage in a smear campaign founded on falsehoods and to cast aspersions on my character for doing my job as a volunteer to World football."

PT Damaseb
Deputy Chairman
FIFA ETHICS COMMITTEE
19 October 2011

Happy Birthday Shep...

Shep Messing (born October 9, 1949 in The Bronx, New York) is a former American soccer goalkeeper and current broadcaster. He played seven seasons in the North American Soccer League and six in the Major Indoor Soccer League. He was also a member of the U.S. soccer team at the 1972 Summer Olympics. He is a really good guy; he knows the sport and is a great friend. Enjoy this birthday. You and this day are both special.

Welcome Miss Universe to New York...

50th High School Reunion...

It seemed quite impossible, but here it was, my 50th High School Reunion. Last night at the Edison Ballroom in New York City, the Class of 61 joined together in a celebration of a half century of memories and accomplishment. For me, it was my first class reunion. While I have had very little contact with my fellow high school graduates, it was a refreshing opportunity to relive memories and hear the stories of the roads people have taken to the present. It was a really nice evening and an extraordinary experience.

A very cool young lady...

Irene in New York... All rain. No pain!

Since my Birthday...

Since my birthday in April, I have only made posts on my blog a couple of times. Once to show a video interview of me on the way into FIFA for the meeting of the Executive Committee in May following the initial suspensions of the Warner/Bin Hammam case brought by me to the Ethics Committee; and the other set of videos coming from the CONCACAF website dealing with the magic of this year's Gold Cup competition.

I considered both of those very important and broke my self imposed silence on the blog to see that I memorialized those two watershed events.

Once the issue of the Elections and the Trinidad meeting became news, my blog became the source of pictures of a lifestyle that many bloggers found objectionable. I was proud to know and happy to share those moments with you the readers of this blog. Instead, others used them to poke fun at me and my family and the pictures gave them a wealth of material to draw whatever fanciful conclusions they wished to make about many of the people found on these pages.

As a consequence, at least during the period from when the cases were initiated on May 29th, I chose to avoid doing my normal writing and posting of pictures to allow the legal process the greatest latitude of working independently of any influence or noise from me. I had done my part. The Ethics Code required me in Article 14.1 as follows: Officials shall report any evidence of violations of conduct to the FIFA Secretary General, who shall report it to the competent body.

The cases brought on May 29th are closed. No longer am I inhibited by those open issues. There are new issues on the table daily and new things that I am learning. CONCACAF has been inhibited in expressing its position due to the action taken in the Bahamas Court by Lisle Austin and therefore has not been able to respond to many of the issues which are being faced by the organization.

I expect, in my role as a member of FIFA's Executive Committee, I will be able to continue to express myself on important topics which face our region and plan to do so over the coming days and weeks. I look forward to filling the vacuum with real information.