Let's see if THIS one gets printed:-
[THE EDITOR]
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you this personal note regarding what I consider to be a serious omission on your part and that is the failure of you and your media organization to ask the necessary hard questions of Jack Warner regarding this behavior while an official of FIFA and especially his stewardship of LOC 2006 Ltd.
Over the years many reputable foreign journalists have asked these questions of Mr. Warner and got very unsatisfactory answers. Only Lasana Liburd, among local journalists has asked seriously probing questions of Mr. Warner and received either insults or ridiculous rants in return. While Mr. Warner spent 28 years at FIFA he amassed a personal fortune that, one reputable local senior council told me, is in the region of five hundred million Unites States dollars. Of course, the bulk of this money has come from being awarded the regional rights to football World Cup and other FIFA sanctioned world football tournaments.
Now, as you would know, an administrative official of a sporting organization has absolutely no right to pocket millions of dollars from TV rights to World Cup. You think the head of the English FA is awarded the English TV rights to the World Cup. Absolutely not. The rights have to be sold to a legitimate television station with the proceeds going to the regional football federation to develop youth and other football programmes for the region. Yet when Mr. Warner is exposed for personally receiving many millions of dollars from World Cup TV rights, not only do you not question him on the matter but you refuse to print my letters asking him the necessary questions on the matter.
Now, let us get to LOC 2006 Ltd. I am told by those in the know that the total amount of money received by this company would be close to 160 million TT dollars. There were 3 signatories to the account- Jack Warner, Darryl Warner and Daryan Warner. Now half of the revenue of that company was promised by Mr. Warner himself to the 2006 Soca Warriors and then afterwards instead of 80 million Mr. Warner offers them $400,000 dollars instead. If we ever get to the truth about what happened to the LOC 2006 fund, I am certain that a minimum of 60 million dollarshas ended up in the wrong place.
Let me now tell you what is really happening here. The late, great, Jeffrey Stollmeyer, was the President of the WIBC for 7 years, among his other contributions, and if you dared to suggest in a meeting that he should pocket TV rights to a cricket series the meeting would have ended right there. In addition, the icy glare you would have received from him also let you know you are no longer welcome to call him ever again.
Instead, we have Mr. Warner now establishing the precedent for regional sporting administrators to pocket the lions’ share of the revenue coming in to the sporting organizations they are in charge of. Like I said in a previously unprinted letter on the matter, it is like the Governor of the Central Bank receiving commissions from deposits the bank is holding from commercial banks. I now understand that both Messrs Rosseau and Dehrig also pocketed substantial amounts of WIBC money while negotiating TV rights on behalf of regional cricket for the 2007 cricket World Cup and the head of the Guyana cricket board is also now looking after himself, albeit In a much smaller way.
However, the point is that following Mr. Warners’ lead, sporting administrators in the region are now in it not for the love of the sport or to serve but to fill their own pockets and we have Jack Warner and a compliant media to thank for that.
With great disappointment
Gregory Wight
Diego Martin