FIFA bans former senior VP Chung for financial misconduct

ZURICH (AP) — Former FIFA senior vice president David Chung has been banned from soccer for 6 1/2 years for financial wrongdoing linked to a $20 million building project.

FIFA says its ethics committee judges found Chung, who resigned as the Oceania soccer confederation president last April, guilty of “having offered and accepted gifts” and “conflict of interest.”

Chung was fined 100,000 Swiss francs ($100,000).

The Papua New Guinea official left his soccer positions after a FIFA-appointed audit found irregularities linked to building Oceania’s new headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand.

FIFA froze funding to the 11-member regional body.

Chung had been president of Papua New Guinea’s soccer federation since 2004. He rose to lead Oceania after a World Cup bidding scandal implicated his predecessor Reynald Temarii of Tahiti.