Warner warns FIFA ahead of bribery defence
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — An unfazed Jack Warner has warned football’s world governing body, FIFA, of a pending “tsunami”, as he prepares to defend himself against allegations of bribery before the organisation’s ethics committee today.
Warner, a powerful FIFA vice-president, is to appear before the committee in Zurich accused, along with FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam, of offering bribes to members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) at a meeting here in exchange for votes in the FIFA presidential elections on Wednesday.
“I tell you something, in the next couple days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you…,” said Warner who heads CFU and also CONCACAF, the continental governing body for football in North, Central America and the Caribbean.
“The time has come when I must stop playing dead so you’ll see it, it’s coming, trust me you’ll see it by now and Monday.
“I have been here for 29 consecutive years and if the worst happen, the worst happen,” he told reporters during a break during the meeting of the Parliament.
Warner, who is also the Minister of Works and Transport, said he was prepared to walk away from FIFA.
“If that is what it comes to so be it, you must never get too attached to anything, it clouds your judgment and therefore whatever happens, happens, que sera sera. I am not even remotely bothered.
“I had planned to leave Saturday morning in any case because I have meetings on Sunday afternoon… They can do what they want, it doesn’t bother me.”
He told reporters he was also not afraid of anyone going into the meeting.
“I have lived three score and almost 10 and my Jack hasn’t been hanged as yet, why should it be hung now? By whom? The American Chuck Blazer? His American lawyer John Collins? Give me a break. I am not the faint-hearted you know…
“Let them go ahead, I have no problem with that. But I’ll tell you something, I will hold my head high to the very end because, I repeat here again, I am not guilty of a single iota of wrongdoing.”
