Jennings: FIFA wants to get rid of Jack.Dear Editor,It seems that Sepp Blatter’s covert campaign to evict Jack Warner from FIFA is getting under the skin of the UNC Chairman. Blatter is a subtle operator and his deftly managed campaign to give global publicity to my presentation at the Ritz-Carlton in Miami next week to an audience of US government investigators and prosecutors is rightly worrying Mr Warner.
The money-making activities of the Warner family bring nothing but embarrassment and shame to Blatter and FIFA. They want rid of him, his sons, his entourage and their perpetual scandals which increasingly irritate the global brands that fund world football.
Their endless racketeering in World Cup tickets - going back as far as the notorious 1989 qualifier versus USA - and coming up to date with FIFA levying a US$1 million fine on Daryan Warner for the family’s profiteering in Germany in 2006, as yet unpaid, continues to bring FIFA into discredit.
Blatter has had enough. So he has pulled out all the stops to tell the world about my forensic presentation about his FIFA vice-president. I have heard that T&T media is interested in my speech – indeed the Express has been in touch asking me. I am told that all the big American media will be there – it’s a very prestigious conference – and CNN will broadcast
In Miami on Tuesday I will be adding to what I disclosed as the invited speaker at the Cape Town Press Club last week and a day later delivering the keynote address at a book launch in the same city at the prestigious Institute of Security Studies (see report in the New York Times).
I made similar disclosures at a conference of forensic auditors in Kampala last summer and at Wits University in Johannesburg in November. The African people that I meet don’t consider Mr Warner to be their brother and will shun him and his grasping family during the World Cup.
The private comments to me by a former inmate of apartheid’s notorious Robben Island jail about Mr Warner and FIFA, as he took me to meet the impoverished footballing children of a Cape township last week, cannot be published in a family newspaper.
Students of football politics will be aware of how President Blatter manoeuvres against those he wants out of FIFA. Admittedly such tactics backfired against Asian football president Mr Mohamed Bin Hammam last year. Even as Blatter embraced the Qatari he sank the blade into his back, but missed his heart. Now, as the world knows, Bin Hammam has publically declared war on Blatter.
President Blatter is now making similar moves against Mr Warner, seeking to end the damage inflicted on FIFA, CONCACAF and the CFU. This time he is being more careful that the blade does not bounce back at him again.
So I find nonsensical the claims being bandied about by Mr Warner that I am coming to Trinidad to join the PNM campaign. This is news to me and my family and probably a surprise to the senior UNC official who welcomed me to his home when I was in Trinidad last August, teaching investigative journalism to reporters from across the Caribbean.
On that trip I met several UNC officials (thanks for the wonderful home-cooked food) and bumped into more in an upmarket bar. One I recall was Dr. Tim Gopeesingh. My only dealings with the PNM was spending five minutes chatting with Keith Rowley in 2001.
Mr Warner will doubtless continue baying to the moon about me being ‘one of the most discredited journalists in Christendom’ (does that mean I’m OK with Hindus, Muslims and all other faiths?) and in some imaginary conspiracy with the PNM.
I have neither offered myself nor will accept any involvement in the politics of T&TG. But I will report on all and any rogue where I have documentary evidence. Welcome to Miami.
I recall Warner in May 2006 claiming implausibly that I and my employers the BBC were partners in a conspiracy with Mr Manning. What is worrying for public life in T&T is that the demented Warner probably believes his own fantasies.
But enough from me, the journalist assailed by Mr Warner in Rio Claro in May 2006 as ‘an old white foreigner’ – view it on my website or on YouTube. What do non-political Trinis think?
I draw your attention to the angry press release issued yesterday by members of your marvellous 2006 Soca Warriors squad, denouncing Mr Warner for telling ‘untruths’ about them and his continued refusal to pay them the millions of dollars he owes. I hope you publish every word of it. As the Port of Spain court fails to rule, your heroes are being starved into submission.
Is that where the money has come from to fund Mr Warner’s campaign to find a new role in public life as he sees his FIFA career being brought to an end?
Now that is a real story. Not fantasies about an ‘old white foreigner.’
Yours warmly,
Andrew Jennings
Transparencyinsport.org
UKWorld Cup 2010 investigative book
Ongoing matter between TTFF and members of the 2006 WC squad.We, thirteen members of the Trinidad and Tobago 2006 WC Squad, have found it necessary and extremely important to inform the world’s media of our outrage concerning Mr Warner’s false and libellous comments in the media concerning our ongoing dispute with the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) and Jack Warner, FIFA Vice President and Special Advisor to the TTFF.
We would like to make it clear that our timing is not of a political alignment, but merely a reaction to Mr Warner’s attempt to mislead the people of Trinidad and Tobago by telling untruths engineered to gain electoral mileage. We would ask the UNC: before you select Mr Warner, will you be questioning him over his financial irregularities and debt to us, or are you looking for your own version of Calder Hart?
Following an arbitration hearing in London on May 19th 2008, SDRP Chairman Ian Mill QC ruled that the players of the Trinidad and Tobago 2006 World Cup squad are entitled to 50% of all World Cup revenue as well as half of all the money Warner erroneously claimed was withheld by FIFA and the German organizing committee for tax.
Mr Mill ordered the TTFF to expeditiously permit sufficient inspection of its records by the players and declare any agreement that might be arguably considered as commercial revenue. Jack Warner and the TTFF have unbelievably ignored this order.
Mr Warner has been informing different media that he has reached a financial settlement with all but four of the 2006 World Cup squad members. This is totally false. The only individuals who have accepted financial settlement with the TTFF are the seven players who were never part of the arbitration/court process and three players who were, but whom eventually accepted a financial settlement.
In October 2009, our case went before the Trinidad and Tobago High Court and, according to our legal experts, was deemed straightforward and clear, with Trinidad and Tobago’s law, arbitration law and UK law, strongly substantiating our claim. Over six months have elapsed however with no sign of a judgement forthcoming. We have questioned the reason for such a delay.
We are certain that the population of Trinidad and Tobago and the global football family will be curious as to why a FIFA Vice President inexplicably ignored Mr Mill’s verdict and has yet to explain or show accounts of the $173,690,113.50 TTD (£17m approx) that the Trinidad and Tobago government confirmed the TTFF received from the public and private sector.
When we qualified for our first World Cup on November 17th 2005 in Manama, Bahrain we were all extremely proud to be able to bring joy and happiness to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Now, five years later we are still waiting for our contract to be honoured. We sometimes wonder what we have done to deserve being treated this way by Jack Warner and the TTFF. After all, we kept up our end of the bargain by qualifying.
We the players have always wanted this unfortunate scenario to be sorted out promptly and fairly, thus allowing Trinidad and Tobago football to continue to thrive and for us to have further opportunity to achieve the success of Germany 2006.
Anthony Wolfe, Atiba Charles, Cornell Glen, Aurtis Whitley, Cyd Gray, Brent Sancho, Avery John, Collin Samuel, Stern John, Evans Wise, Kelvin Jack, Shaka Hislop, Kenwyne Jones.
