The Jack Warner story: Made in Trinidad and Tobago
By Lasana Liburd (Wired868)“Jack (Warner) is a measure of reality for those who like bullshit.”
Chuck Blazer, former CONCACAF general secretary and chief financial officer, in Jack Warner’s authorised biography “From Zero To Hero”, which was written by Trinidad Guardian sport editor Valentino Singh
National Security Minister Jack Warner’s initially offered a trademark response to the latest and most deafening furore to engulf him in relation to his inability to restrain himself around other people’s money.
“I tell you on Friday when I reply to (Opposition Leader Keith) Rowley make sure you have a front row seat,” Warner told CNC3, “because I’ve been quiet on Rowley for far too long and the time has come now for me to go after Mr Rowley frontally.”
Exactly what did PNM leader Keith Rowley have to do with Warner’s 21-year stint as CONCACAF president and the confederation’s subsequent investigation headed by former Barbados chief justice and attorney general Sir David Simmons?
Let FIFA, Warner said, worry about FIFA.
It was a desperate plea and ultimately unsuccessfully plea.
Trinidad and Tobago is known to have a short attention span. Next Friday would be exactly seven days after the damning CONCACAF report presented by ex-Barbados chief justice and attorney general, Sir David Simmons.
Warner deduced that if, he could ride the outrage out for that long, he might survive. He could not.
This evening, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced that Warner had resigned and the politician whose personal email address starts with “dsurvivor2011” was finished as a Cabinet member.
2011 was the year that Warner beat a hasty exit from FIFA. It proved to be the start of the end for the former history teacher.
Three years ago, then Integrity Commission chairman Eric St Cyr recommended that Warner chose between his government portfolio and FIFA position. Had he chosen then to walk away from football, the Chaguanas West MP would probably have lasted the term as a Cabinet member.
If Warner chose football, he might have continued to benefit from the lax scrutiny afforded to most sporting administrators.
But, like Icarus, Warner grew intoxicated with his own power and flew too close to the sun.
In the end, he was undone by his own greed. And it is ironic that after years of using his FIFA credentials to buy and bully Trinidad and Tobago citizens and, quite possibly, to commit crimes within this country’s boundaries; it is the football body that sent him to his political grave.
Two years after his promised tsunami produced barely a ripple, FIFA president Sepp Blatter had the last word as his new CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb producing a remarkably clean hit.
The FBI, in all likelihood, would be next in line for its pound of flesh.
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