FI­FA asked its ethics com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate 16 Caribbean foot­ball lead­ers yes­ter­day over a widen­ing bribery scan­dal in­volv­ing for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam.The of­fi­cials are sus­pect­ed in con­nec­tion with be­ing of­fered or tak­ing $40,000 in cash to back Bin Ham­mam against FI­FA Pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter, then deny­ing the cor­rup­tion at­tempt to in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by for­mer FBI di­rec­tor Louis Freeh.

The sus­pects from 11 Caribbean coun­tries in­clude Col­in Klass of Guyana, a long-stand­ing al­ly of for­mer Caribbean foot­ball strong­man Jack Warn­er.FI­FA said that Klass, a mem­ber of the gov­ern­ing body's Fut­sal and Beach Soc­cer Com­mit­tee, has been pro­vi­sion­al­ly sus­pend­ed "af­ter con­sid­er­a­tion of the spe­cif­ic in­for­ma­tion re­ceived on this mat­ter."FI­FA says the 16 will be in­vit­ed for fresh in­ter­views by Freeh's team as part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion led by Robert Tor­res, a supreme court judge from Guam."It is im­por­tant to note that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are still on­go­ing, and that it is there­fore pos­si­ble that fur­ther pro­ceed­ings could be opened in the fu­ture," FI­FA said in a state­ment.

The list al­so in­cludes Mark Bob Forde from Bar­ba­dos, who was a FI­FA-ap­proved in­ter­na­tion­al ref­er­ee for al­most 20 years.Haiti fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent Yves Jean-Bart is al­so un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He made a speech at the FI­FA Con­gress on June 1 crit­i­cis­ing Eng­lish of­fi­cials who want­ed Blat­ter's elec­tion de­layed while cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions were ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

The sec­ond wave of cas­es fol­lows bin Ham­mam's life ban last month.FI­FA's ethics pan­el al­so sus­pend­ed two Caribbean Foot­ball Union staffers for one year for their part in dis­trib­ut­ing the cash-stuffed brown en­velopes in a Trinidad ho­tel.FI­FA then in­vit­ed of­fi­cials from CFU mem­ber coun­tries for "truth­ful and com­plete re­port­ing" of what hap­pened dur­ing the Qatari can­di­date's May 10 cam­paign vis­it to Trinidad.FI­FA's le­gal process typ­i­cal­ly sees ac­cused of­fi­cials called be­fore the ethics pan­el, which de­cides if the ev­i­dence de­mands fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion and a full hear­ing some weeks lat­er. Those un­der sus­pi­cion face be­ing pro­vi­sion­al­ly sus­pend­ed from any foot­ball du­ty, in­clud­ing con­tact­ing oth­er of­fi­cials and at­tend­ing na­tion­al team games.The scan­dal threat­ens to re­move some of the Caribbean's most in­flu­en­tial foot­ball lead­ers dur­ing a busy pe­ri­od of 2014 World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion match­es. Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana - who each have of­fi­cials on the FI­FA list - have been drawn in a four-team, sec­ond-round group which is played from Sep­tem­ber to No­vem­ber. Their group is com­plet­ed by Bermu­da, whose of­fi­cials were among the orig­i­nal whistle­blow­ers ex­pos­ing the scan­dal.

Bar­ba­dos al­so saw FI­FA sus­pend its most se­nior of­fi­cial, Lisle Austin, for one year on Wednes­day.Austin, a mem­ber of FI­FA's ref­er­ees com­mit­tee, broke foot­ball rules by go­ing to an or­di­nary civ­il court with a le­gal griev­ance against the CON­CA­CAF con­ti­nen­tal body in the af­ter­math of the bribery scan­dal.Warn­er re­signed all his foot­ball du­ties and priv­i­leges in June rather than face FI­FA jus­tice. A leaked re­port re­vealed that the five-man ethics pan­el be­lieved it had "com­pelling" ev­i­dence of a bribery con­spir­a­cy be­tween Warn­er and his long­time FI­FA col­league bin Ham­mam.Warn­er had been an ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber for 28 years and was pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF and the CFU, rep­re­sent­ing 25 of the 208 FI­FA mem­bers.