After the arrest of Jeffrey Webb on 27 May 2015, Hawit was made president of FIFA. Hawit himself was then arrested on corruption charges on 3 Dec 2015 in the Baur au Lac hotel in Zürich. On 4 December 2015 he was banned for 90 days by the FIFA Ethics Committee. Hawit was found guilty of four conspiracy counts in the sweeping FIFA bribery scandal in April 2016.