South African official banned for six years

The ethics committee for football's world governing body FIFA has banned South African official Lindile Kika from all footballing activity for six years.

"The proceedings against Lindile Kika were opened in November 2014 in relation to several international friendly matches played in South Africa in 2010," FIFA's ethics committee said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kika, an ex-member of the executive committee of the football association in South Africa, was involved in reports about Singapore-based convicted match fixer Wilson Perumal and his Football 4U organization linking up with officials in South Africa to fix matches before the country held the 2010 World Cup.

FIFA found the results of warm-up matches against Thailand, Bulgaria, Colombia and Guatemala were fixed by the South African official.

"The investigation was led by the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, Dr Cornel Borbely, in collaboration with the FIFA security division," the statement continued.

FIFA judge Hans-Joachim Eckert found Kika guilty of breaching five sections of the ethics code, which were detailed in the statement. "The decision was taken on the basis of art. 13 (General rules of conduct), art. 15 (Loyalty), art. 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting), art. 19 (Conflicts of interest) and art. 22 (Commission) of the FIFA Code of Ethics."

This comes just two days after Worawi Makudi, the head of the Thai Football Association, was handed a temporary ban.

apc/jh (AFP, Reuters)