Corruption Currents
By Samuel Rubenfeld
Updated below
A newly released video allegedly shows Caribbean soccer officials being addressed by Jack Warner about cash gifts from Mohamed bin Hammam, the latest development in the months-long scandal at international soccer’s governing body.
Andrea De Silva/Reuters Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner, who also serves as Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Works and Transport, speaks to the media during a visit to flood-affected Victory Heights in Arima on June 20, 2011.
In a report Wednesday, the Daily Telegraph alleges the video shows members of the Caribbean soccer union (known as the CFU) listening to a speaker off-camera who says they must decide whether to accept bin Hammam’s offer of $40,000 each, and urges them to vote for him over the incumbent, Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, in a presidential election to lead Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA.
The Telegraph said the video was recorded at the same May meeting in Trinidad and Tobago at which Warner allegedly paid the Caribbean officials to vote for bin Hammam in the June 1 election. (Bin Hammam dropped out of the race following a provisional suspension as the investigation unfolded, and Blatter won the election unopposed.)
Warner didn’t respond to a request for comment from Corruption Currents. He also didn’t respond to a request from the Telegraph. Bin Hammam couldn’t be reached for comment.
UPDATE: Jack Warner said the release of the video is “tantamount to contempt” in an email to the Press Association. “It seeks to influence international opinion against what is clearly a conspiracy against the delegates of the Caribbean Football Union,” he said.
Warner previously denied offering the payments. He resigned and was subsequently exonerated by FIFA. Last month, Warner lashed out at FIFA, saying it is “devastating lives” in the Caribbean.
The North American, Caribbean and Central American soccer confederation, known as CONCACAF, which delegates authority over the CFU, deferred comment to Chuck Blazer, its retiring general secretary.
Blazer said he believed the video to be authentic, saying “I know it’s Warner’s voice and I’m familiar with people in the room,” in a short phone interview with Corruption Currents.
“I believe it to be accurate,” Blazer said, noting that he wasn’t at the meeting in question. Blazer was the whistleblower who reported the alleged payments to FIFA headquarters in Zurich, touching off the investigation.
During the video, a questioner points his finger toward the speaker, whom he identifies as Warner.
Bin Hammam, meanwhile, was banned for life over the alleged payments by the organization, an decision he is now appealing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport after losing one at FIFA. He has consistently denied the allegations against him and accused FIFA of racism.
FIFA’s Ethics Committee is hearing trials this week for 15 of the Caribbean officials under investigation for allegedly taking the money. Colin Klass, the 16th official named by FIFA, was banned for 26 months, but he previously denied the allegations against him. The video, according to the Telegraph report, is being shown to those appearing this week before the FIFA Ethics Committee.
The voice in the video says “I said to [bin Hammam] if you bring cash, I don’t want you to give cash to anybody, but when you do you can give it to the CFU and the CFU will give it to its members. Because I don’t want [it] to even remotely appear that anyone has any obligation to vote for you because of what gifts you have given them, and he fully accepted that.”
The speaker challenges Caribbean officials thinking about turning down the cash. “I know there are some people here who believe they are more pious than thou. If you are pious go to a church friends, but the fact is that our business is our business,” he said.
But he added: “If there is anybody here who has a conscience and wishes to send back the money, I am willing to take the money and give it back to him at any moment.”
Separately, Brazilian police and federal prosecutors announced they’re investigating Ricardo Teixeira, the country’s soccer confederation president, for alleged illegal transfer of funds into the country and money laundering. Teixeira has denied any wrongdoing in the case.
The probe against Teixeira, according to the prosecutors’ office, is connected to accusations made by a BBC News program that said he and two other FIFA executives took bribes from a collapsed marketing partner between 1989 and 1999. Prosecutors asked police to probe whether any part of that money entered Brazil illegally through companies in tax havens belonging to Teixeira.
