The former vice-president of the organisation has hit out at footage of him encouraging officials to accept cash gifts, branding it a deliberate attempt to undermine the CFU
By Livio Caferoglu
Goal.com: Ex-Fifa vice-president Jack Warner has insisted that the leak of a video urging officials to accept bribes from Mohamed Bin Hammam is proof of a conspiracy against Caribbean delegates.
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Warner, who was charged amid allegations of bribery earlier this year but resigned from his post in June, reacted furiously to the leak in the wake of the news that 15 Caribbean officials are set to face hearings from the Fifa Ethics Committee on Friday.
“The release of this video is tantamount to contempt because it seeks to influence international opinion against what is clearly a conspiracy against the delegates of the Caribbean Football Union,” Warner wrote in an email to the Press Association. “Moreover there are a lot more questions which the Fifa should answer from this convenient revelation.
“The Caribbean delegates are currently in Zurich and are actively involved in disciplinary proceedings established by the Fifa so this leak is clearly subjudicious [sic] and contrary to the very principles of law and justice.
“Regretfully, this is what defines the Fifa; a perceived right to do all in its power, right or wrong, to defend its own.”
Warner then went on to discuss the events relayed in the video, sensationally claiming that the it was evidence of entrapment, as Fifa had pressured him and the officials to perform acts of bribery.
“Never before has a covert video been made, let alone been published, in the history of CFU. It is clear that those who recorded the meeting, and subsequently made certain that the video went global, are engaged in entrapment.
“It is therefore not paranoia nor mindless talk to speak of a conspiracy by those who had an agenda: the one to weaken the Concacaf through its largest voting bloc, the CFU, and thus ascertain that Caribbean men and women are excluded from the decision-making process in Concacaf and Fifa in the future.”
Warner also brought the Swiss influence at Fifa to light, which includes president Sepp Blatter, Ethics Committee chairman Claudio Sulser, and head of the Disciplinary Committee, Marcel Mathier, who has also previously represented Blatter.
“The Swiss seem to have a morality of their own,” Warner exclaimed. “Fifa cannot be allowed to continue tarnishing the images and characters of good men.
“For it is clear that the Fifa is determined to stop at nothing as they seek to destroy, to extirpate those they have defined as their enemies from any sphere of influence.
“However, truth crushed to the ground will rise again. At the end of the day, the truth will prevail. In time, truth will always arise,” he concluded.
