FIFA executive committee member Amos Adamu, suspended on suspicion of selling his vote in the contest to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, has denied wrongdoing and said investigations would show him to be a credible person.
Nigerian Adamu has been provisionally suspended while FIFA's ethics committee probes allegations that he and Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) president Reynald Temarii offered to sell their votes when approached by Sunday Times journalists posing as lobbyists for an American consortium.
Fellow executive committee member Temarii has also been suspended in one of the biggest controversies to have rocked soccer's governing body. "The ethics committee will investigate this and I am very happy about it because this will enable the whole world to know the truth of the matter," Adamu told the BBC in an interview.
The newspaper report said Adamu was filmed asking for 500,000 pounds ($799,600) for a personal project and that Tahitian Temari asked an undercover reporter in Auckland for NZ$3 million ($2.27 million). Only the 24 members of FIFA's executive committee vote on the World Cup hosts. The decision is due to be made on December 2 in Zurich.