PFF President "unaware" of cash payments to ex-official from AFC chief

Philippine Football Federation president Mariano “Nonong” Araneta is “unaware” of the $60,000 in cash handed out to his predecessor Jose Mari Martinez by suspended Asian Football Confederation chief Mohammed bin Hammam, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Citing an audit report international accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers dated July 13, the AP earlier named Martinez as among the Asian football heads who received cash payments from bin Hammam, who has been suspended by the AFC because of corruption allegations.
“If Mr. Hammam ever gave money to Mr. Martinez, it should be Mr. Hammam who should explain… and the PFF has nothing to do with that,” Araneta said in the AP report. “If Mr. Martinez received funds for his personal use, we cannot go after him because it was just between the two of them. Now, if money went to the PFF and was taken out for certain individuals, we will go after them.”
Martinez supposedly received $60,000 in cash and apart from having $11,226 of hospital expenses paid.
Bin Hammam has been fighting allegations of trying to buy votes of FIFA delegates in his bid to unseat the federation’s president, Sepp Blatter, in the group’s election last year.
Martinez, meanwhile, was ousted by the PFF Board of Governors in October 2010 over questions of his use of the federation’s funds, a move that was recognized by FIFA in December that year. Bin Hammam initially threw his support behind Martinez on the issue, but later stood down after a letter from FIFA to accept its decision.
Martinez has denied all the charges leveled by the PFF against him. In an interview with this author in March 2011, he said that two different audit reports showed that the charges were baseless. He also challenged the federation to sue him in court over the allegations.
The PFF has not filed any suit against Martinez.
But observers aren’t taking Araneta’s word at face value. Sun.Star Cebu sports editor Mike Limpag, a prominent football fan who helped coin the nickname “Azkals” for the Philippine national football team, wrote in his column: “I really don’t buy Nonong’s explanation that he doesn’t know where the $60,000 went because as I have happened to observe in the PFF, people talk all the time, especially when money’s involved.”
In a visit to the Philippines in 2009, bin Hammmam pledged P10-million (about $238,000) in aid to the PFF.

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