AFC general secretary suspended over `cover up`

Kuala Lumpur: Asian Football Confederation general secretary Alex Soosay was suspended on Wednesday over allegations he tried to hide documents during an audit that was prompted by corruption claims.

The move follows the emergence of the videotaped interview of an AFC official who said Soosay asked him to conceal documents during the 2012 audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"A video statement conducted as part of a FIFA investigation was passed to media recently and the AFC has now been able to verify its authenticity," a brief AFC statement said.

In the interview, the employee said Soosay asked him to "tamper (with) or hide" papers thought to relate to payments ordered by disgraced ex-AFC president Mohamed bin Hammam.

Bin Hammam, now banned from football worldwide, was accused of bribery as well as financial wrongdoing during his time at the helm of the Asian football body.

Soosay`s suspension comes less than two weeks after he insisted to AFP that "the case is closed".

"It`s completely, I don`t know, all of a sudden taken out of context," he said on May 1, during an interview at the AFC congress in Bahrain.