Warner attacks Sport Minister.
By: Lasana Liburd (Express).
FIFA vice-president and Opposition MP Jack Warner yesterday accused Gary Hunt of racial discrimination in a lengthy attack on the new Sport Minister over his perceived disinterest in sports played by "young, black men".
Warner accused the Trinidad and Tobago Government of reneging on their financial promises at a press conference ostensibly called at the Queen's Park Oval by the T&T Football Federation to congratulate the "Soca Warriors" on their 2-2 result away to Jamaica on Wednesday. Warner spent most of his time discussing the Sport Ministry and Hunt in particular.
"Let the Ministry of Sport pursue and persevere and push powerboat racing and golf and go-kart racing," said Warner, "and discriminate against football and basketball and boxing, whom they gave $400,000 (on Thursday) for a tournament (on Saturday).
"Poor, young black people being discriminated against on the grounds of race. There is nothing else.
"Young, black, poor people, the masses so to speak, and the Ministry of Sport and the Minister particularly is the most discriminatory I have seen."
Warner, who regularly clashed with former Sport Minister Roger Boynes, said he now missed Boynes. Boynes often threatened to withhold State funds without accounting evidence from the T&TFF.
The Express tried unsuccessfully to reach Hunt for a response.
Warner again claimed to be bankrolling the local game and said that he mortgaged his personal property yesterday morning to finance "the efforts of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation".
"This morning, I was able to go to a bank to take a property of mine to mortgage it for a second time," he said, "to carry the football and keep the dream alive...(I) will mortgage much more because the Ministry of Sport, under no condition, must frustrate the efforts of the Federation...
"Since last December, this Federation has been living by the grace of God and I don't want to say that Jack Warner is God but if you want to say 'by the grace of Jack' "
Warner congratulated T&T head coach Francisco Maturana for producing positive results with local players "discarded by a previous coaching regime as being unfit and no good". But there was a warning too for the young Warriors.
The T&TFF special adviser told the players-Joe Public defender Keyeno Thomas, Defence Force left back Aklie Edwards and 18-year-old CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh Khaleem Hyland were among the audience-that they had better forget about making a good living from international duty.
The local Federation appears before a London-based Sport Dispute Resolution Panel this month to determine whether they are indebted to 16 of their 2006 World Cup players. Warner told the present squad that they should view their match fees and bonuses as merely "a stipend to keep you going".
"It is the wrong thing to use the success we are getting now and will get in the future to try to exact as much money as you want and believe the Federation can give you," said Warner. "My young footballers and members of the various technical staff, the money you have to get in football is not from the Federation and some arbitration panel.
"The money you have to get in football is based on your performances of the field of play, which will lead you on to greater fortunes in clubs in Europe. That is where the money is."