FA chairman Greg Dyke to explain backing for Michel Platini before MPs

Time to talk: FA chairman Greg Dyke
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Martyn Ziegler28 October 2015

Football Association chairman Greg Dyke will be asked to explain the governing body's backing for Michel Platini when he appears before MPs later on Wednesday.

The FA had backed Platini's candidacy for the FIFA presidency but has since suspended its support after the Uefa president was provisionally banned for 90 days pending a disciplinary hearing into a £1.3million payment he received in 2011.

Dyke is to appear before the culture, media and sport select committee. Representatives of four Fifa sponsors - Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Anheuser-Busch Inbev and Visa - are also due to give evidence.

A meeting of the committee on Tuesday heard that the Serious Fraud Office is looking at potential money-laundering offences involving the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

SFO director David Green said it had no jurisdiction to go after Fifa under bribery laws but that there may have been potential money-laundering offences. One of these involved a £270,000 payment (500,000 Australian dollars) payment by the Australia 2022 bid committee to Jack Warner which may have gone through London.

Green said: "We are still examining issues around possible money laundering and I won't be able to go into detail as new information has come to us quite recently."

Asked about the Australia payment, Green said: "I cannot confirm the assertion that money went through London - it certainly started off in Sydney and appears to have ended up in Trinidad.

"It could be money-laundering yes. Whether the money came through London is important.

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"There are outstanding matters which touch upon money-laundering, there are a number of matters we are still looking at and digging in to."

The committee also heard from Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general for England and Wales who sat on Fifa's independent governance committee to recommend reforms.

Goldsmith said the failure of Fifa to publish the Garcia report into World Cup bidding was "a farce" and "absurd".

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