For journalists hell bent on digging up yet more dirt on world football’s governing body Fifa — Jack Warner is the gift that just keeps on giving.
The 71-year-old former Fifa vice-president from Trinidad and Tobago was back in the spotlight last week after fresh allegations that he accepted payments of almost $2 million (Dh7.35 million) from a Qatari firm linked to the country’s successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. The Daily Telegraph has obtained documents that allege Warner personally received $1.2 million from a company owned by Mohammad Bin Hammam, the former Fifa executive member for Qatar, just two weeks after the Gulf state was awarded the tournament.
Warner’s sons Daryl and Daryan are also said to have received payments totalling almost $750,000, while one of his employees allegedly took a further $400,000 from the same company. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now looking into whether these payments actually helped influence the World Cup decision.
However, so tangled is Warner’s alleged web of deception that the cash could just as easily be connected to any number of his previous scandals. Warner resigned from Fifa in 2011 after a 30-year association, following allegations that he bribed members of the Caribbean Football Union in exchange for their backing of Bin Hammam in the Qatari’s unsuccessful Fifa presidential campaign to overthrow the incumbent Sepp Blatter. There is some suggestion that these latest payments were to cover the legal fees from that debacle, but could the cash have also been for earlier vote rigging?
“As a consequence of Mr Warner’s self-determined resignation, all ethics committee procedures against him have been closed and the presumption of innocence is maintained,” read the Fifa statement upon his departure.
The former History teacher, who remains an MP in his native Trinidad, must have thought that the mud had not stuck as he slipped off into the sunset with his Dh120,000 annual Fifa pension. And having escaped a long list of previous accusations why would he? In 2004, the former head of the Scottish Football Association, John McBeth, said Warner had asked for a cheque to be made out to his own personal account for payment of a friendly match between Scotland and Trinidad in Glasgow.
“I found out later, he’d approached several other staff in my organisation to do exactly the same thing,” McBeth recalled. He also shortchanged his own national team after their 2006 World Cup debut, handing out bonuses of just Dh1,800 to each player. Trinidad and Tobago’s players had claimed to have been promised much more and so took him to court where they were finally awarded Dh500,000 each! All the while, Warner’s travel firm had made Dh3.6 million from selling 180 World Cup tickets at three times the market value. “He should be more prudent when it comes to ticketing,” said Blatter, in comments typical of the unprecedented leniency often afforded to the former head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf).
‘Tsunami’ of counter claims
Ominously, the Fifa response was just as muted in 2011 when Lord Triesman, the former chairman of the English Football Association, accused Warner of demanding bribes in exchange for votes during England’s 2018 World Cup bid; especially after Warner had promised a “tsunami” of counter claims against Fifa. Russia eventually won that bid. A spokesman from the Qatar World Cup organising committee has denied the latest allegations that payments were made to Warner, saying: “The 2022 bid committee strictly adhered to Fifa’s bidding regulations in compliance with their code of ethics,” and “individuals involved in the 2022 bid committee are unaware of any allegations surrounding business dealings between private individuals.”
Meanwhile, Warner himself has released a statement, saying: “I have no interest in joining in the foolishness that is now passing as news on Qatar and Jack Warner. Nor do I intend to join those who are on a witch-hunt against the World Cup 2022 venue.” But what former Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Shaka Hislop has had to say about Warner is probably most damning. “He’s a very powerful Fifa vice-president,” said Hislop. “You have to woo these officials if you want to host this World Cup. It’s a necessary evil.”
Whatever we are led to believe about Warner, he is obviously not the rogue element we are made to think he is, but rather the tip of an iceberg of much greater malpractice. Fifa was willing to turn a blind eye until his alleged misdeeds threatened to help Hammam unseat Blatter.
But now, as the pair appears to be left out on a limb — caught between a British press bitter about the loss of the World Cup and a governing body now unable to protect them — the lid looks set to be blown on an even bigger conspiracy.
