The one-time Vice President of FIFA, Jack Warner, spent a night in jail in Trinidad and Tobago after the arrest warrant came his way for corruption charges in international soccer. Denying he did anything wrong, Warner turned himself in, appearing before a judge, who he likely knew on first name basis, in Port-of-Spain, where his bail was set for $395,000; he was instructed to surrender his passport and to report to the police twice a week. He is accused by US authorities of taking millions of dollars in bribes.
Escape was out of the question. The atmosphere outside the dome was cyanide, and Earth was 446,120,000,000,000,000 miles away.
Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughter House-Five
As the President of CONCACAF, Warner exclaimed no wrongdoing. In his mind, these allegations were preposterous. After leaving his post in 2011, to avoid FIFA sanctions during the organization’s election process, Warner also has two sons that had pled guilty to charges of corruption in similar situations.
It turns out that practically any position having to do with organizing soccer must be associated with corruption. Why must this be? The saying in Brazil is that “Brazil has the best footballers, and the worst managers,” referring to the inability to organize well, and the proclivity to act in vice. As a kid staying in Brazil I got a sense of this – disorganization – firsthand, noticing that when it comes to traffic, there are basically no rules. Drivers would hustle and bustle for positions at a stop light making what was meant to be a straight line turn into a jigsaw puzzle, making what could have been an orderly Andy Warhol painting into a curved-space-rendition of Salvador Dali, and no one did anything about it – unless you consider honking, fist waving, empty threats and mad chaos doing something. So I wondered where are the authorities and why aren’t they doing anything? When my host would talk with vendors, everything had a wink or a nudge behind it; there was always a possible bargain to be had – something hidden under the rug as an option.
Americans have plenty of disorganization and corruption in the states, but there are firmer rules in place, to help prevent such things. There are serious looking, well dressed, members of the FBI lurking around, not taking a sip of alcohol, waiting anxiously for someone to commit a high crime that might offend the likes of Jimmy Stewart. Jack Warner has been the guy to spark that legal interest of the FBI. Warner has been blatantly acting out of step with the laws of the Bureau, and, as audacious as it would seem, from behind the desk in his small office space in Trinidad he is belligerent that he would be accused of anything at all. He has been quoted in the New York Times saying:
“I have been afforded no due process and I have not even been questioned in this matter…I reiterate that I am innocent of any charges…I have walked away from the politics of world football to immerse myself in the improvement of lives in this country where I shall, God willing, die.” He says the US investigators “know where to find me” adding “I sleep very soundly in the night.”
In 2006 as a special advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF), Warner initiated a deal with the national team players to share some of their proceeds from playing at the 2006 World Cup. (They were a team whose members did not enjoy the big salaries of most other players around the world…a team with practically no chance in the universe to lift the World Cup trophy, so not only was the team destined to lose, they had to give up some of their much needed income from participation.) On top of that, the players rejected Warner’s projected figure of what they should have been paid. Warner owns a variety of businesses on his island, where he remains, for now. Loretta Lynch of the US Justice Department is firm on bringing him to the US for trial, for the millions of dollars he has allegedly collected over twenty years. There is much more to come from these unfolding events.
Excerpt from FIFA Exposed, The Collapse of FIFA copyright 2014-15 Shane Stay
Escape was out of the question. The atmosphere outside the dome was cyanide, and Earth was 446,120,000,000,000,000 miles away.
Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughter House-Five
As the President of CONCACAF, Warner exclaimed no wrongdoing. In his mind, these allegations were preposterous. After leaving his post in 2011, to avoid FIFA sanctions during the organization’s election process, Warner also has two sons that had pled guilty to charges of corruption in similar situations.
It turns out that practically any position having to do with organizing soccer must be associated with corruption. Why must this be? The saying in Brazil is that “Brazil has the best footballers, and the worst managers,” referring to the inability to organize well, and the proclivity to act in vice. As a kid staying in Brazil I got a sense of this – disorganization – firsthand, noticing that when it comes to traffic, there are basically no rules. Drivers would hustle and bustle for positions at a stop light making what was meant to be a straight line turn into a jigsaw puzzle, making what could have been an orderly Andy Warhol painting into a curved-space-rendition of Salvador Dali, and no one did anything about it – unless you consider honking, fist waving, empty threats and mad chaos doing something. So I wondered where are the authorities and why aren’t they doing anything? When my host would talk with vendors, everything had a wink or a nudge behind it; there was always a possible bargain to be had – something hidden under the rug as an option.
Americans have plenty of disorganization and corruption in the states, but there are firmer rules in place, to help prevent such things. There are serious looking, well dressed, members of the FBI lurking around, not taking a sip of alcohol, waiting anxiously for someone to commit a high crime that might offend the likes of Jimmy Stewart. Jack Warner has been the guy to spark that legal interest of the FBI. Warner has been blatantly acting out of step with the laws of the Bureau, and, as audacious as it would seem, from behind the desk in his small office space in Trinidad he is belligerent that he would be accused of anything at all. He has been quoted in the New York Times saying:
“I have been afforded no due process and I have not even been questioned in this matter…I reiterate that I am innocent of any charges…I have walked away from the politics of world football to immerse myself in the improvement of lives in this country where I shall, God willing, die.” He says the US investigators “know where to find me” adding “I sleep very soundly in the night.”
In 2006 as a special advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF), Warner initiated a deal with the national team players to share some of their proceeds from playing at the 2006 World Cup. (They were a team whose members did not enjoy the big salaries of most other players around the world…a team with practically no chance in the universe to lift the World Cup trophy, so not only was the team destined to lose, they had to give up some of their much needed income from participation.) On top of that, the players rejected Warner’s projected figure of what they should have been paid. Warner owns a variety of businesses on his island, where he remains, for now. Loretta Lynch of the US Justice Department is firm on bringing him to the US for trial, for the millions of dollars he has allegedly collected over twenty years. There is much more to come from these unfolding events.
Excerpt from FIFA Exposed, The Collapse of FIFA copyright 2014-15 Shane Stay
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