KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7, 2011 (AFP) - Disgraced Asian football chief Mohamed bin Hammam has claimed race was a factor in his lifetime ban from football over bribery charges, saying he would never have been punished if he was European. The Qatari was slapped with the ban in July after he was found guilty of trying to buy votes in the world football body's presidential race by offering Caribbean football officials $40,000 each to oust incumbent Sepp Blatter. Bin Hammam made the race allegations in a letter dated September 4 to Petrus Damaseb, the deputy head of FIFA's ethics panel, in which he also wrote Blatter and secretary general Jerome Valcke should be investigated for corruption. "Were I a European, or were the Caribbean part of Europe, neither Blatter nor Valcke will dare lay a finger on us; were we Europeans, you would have never been given the opportunity to chair this ethics committee panel and slaughter people left and right, as you have done," he stated in the letter. The letter was posted on his personal blog. Bin Hammam, 62, had been head of the Asian Football Confederation. He has since been replaced by an interim chief at the Kuala Lumpur-based AFC. He has maintained his innocence and last month announced he had appealed the life ban. "I have never tried to bribe people and all the attendees of that CFU (Caribbean Football Union) meeting are sure of this fact and you, yourself, heard this from all the witnesses that you and Valcke brought to testify against me," the letter said. Blatter and Valcke "should have the courage to volunteer themselves as the first subjects of such investigations," he added. Bin Hammam, who is the most senior figure to be banned by FIFA in its 107-year history, urged Damaseb, a Namibian judge, not to "let Blatter use you as a pawn in his battle for revenge." Bin Hammam's initial suspension by FIFA over the bribery accusations led to his withdrawal from the body's leadership election, handing Blatter a fourth consecutive term in office. The controversy has highlighted allegations of corruption in FIFA and sparked calls for reform of its governance structure, which anti-graft watchdog Transparency International earlier this month called "opaque".