Latest update December 30th, 2024 2:15 AM
Latest News
- Guyana to pay back US EXIM Bank US$316.2M in interest on US$527M Gas-to-Energy loan
- Three shot, two stabbed as Linden gangs clash
- Israeli forces order new evacuation of besieged northern Gaza town
- Father killed, son hospitalised in Rupununi Bee attack
- ExxonMobil bullish about seizing remaining opportunities in Stabroek Block before license expires in 2027
Former FIFA powerbroker Warner banned for life
Jack responds to sentence
ZURICH (Reuters) Trinidadian Jack Warner, once one of the most powerful men in world soccer, has been banned from all football-related activities for life, the ethics committee of the global governing body FIFA said on Tuesday.
Warner, 72, was one of 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives indicted in the United States on May 27 on bribery, money laundering and wire fraud charges involving more than $150 million in payments.
Former FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner walks after leaving the Magistrate’s Court in Port-of-Spain September 25, 2015. (Reuters/Andrea De Silva)
In the latest twist in the corruption scandal, Swiss authorities said last week they were investigating FIFA President Sepp Blatter on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation of funds.
The FIFA ethics committee said Warner was investigated following an inquiry into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The tournaments were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively in December 2010 by the FIFA executive committee, of which Warner was a member.
Warner was found to have committed “many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF,” the committee said.
“In his positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, as well as other money-making schemes,” it said.
Warner was found guilty of violating ethics code articles on general rules of conduct, loyalty, duty of disclosure, conflicts of interest, the offering and acceptance of gifts and of failing to collaborate with the ethics committee.
Warner is the former president of CONCACAF, the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, a post he held from 1990 to 2011. He sat on FIFA’s all-powerful executive committee for 28 years.
He is currently in his native Trinidad and Tobago, where he is fighting extradition to the United States.
In 2006, FIFA’s executive committee expressed disapproval at Warner’s conduct after following the alleged resale of World Cup tickets and said he should be more “prudent” in the future.
Warner resigned from his posts when he was placed under investigation by the ethics committee in 2011 over a cash-for-votes scandal in the run-up to that year’s FIFA presidential election.
The same scandal also led to a life ban for Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, who had planned to stand against Blatter. The case against Warner was subsequently dropped by the ethics committee as he was no longer involved in football.
Meanwhile, according to the Trinidad Express, corruption-accused Jack Warner yesterday in a response, issued a statement, saying: I left the FIFA in April 2011 and if in September 2015 (some 4 years and 5 months after) the FIFA wants to ban me for life without even a hearing then so be it. I do not believe however that this will serve as the distraction to the FIFA’s present problems as the FIFA wishes it to be. Given what is happening in Zurich with Sepp Blatter I guess that there is no such thing as a coincidence.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
Consent is not a veto
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- Bharrat Jagdeo, continues to muddle the discourse on the renegotiation of the Production... more
Breaking the Chains of Poverty: A need for political will
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- The year 2024 has underscored a grim reality: poverty continues to be an unyielding... more
Weekend Cartoon
