PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Embattled former FIFA vice president Austin Jack Warner today questioned the authenticity of international media reports that the FIFA Ethics Committee had implicated him in a bribery scandal.
In a brief statement, Warner, the Works and Transport Minister in Trinidad and Tobago, said that it had come to his attention “that an anonymous source is circulating to selected international media, a document dated June 17 purporting to be the FIFA’s Ethics Committee “decision” into its ongoing investigation of alleged bid-rigging in the run up to the recent FIFA presidential election.
“I have been reliably informed that the purported “decision” document was neither released by nor was its circulation authorized by FIFA.
“As far as I have been able to establish, the purported FIFA Ethics Committee report which is being scurrilously circulated is merely a summary of the considerations on which the FIFA Ethics Committee decided on provisional suspensions and its call for a full hearing involving the subjects of the allegations on bid rigging,” Warner said.
Warner, 67, on Monday announced that he had resigned from FIFA as vice president with immediate effect after nearly 30 years with the Zurich-based organization. As a result, football’s governing body dropped all investigations, adding that “the presumption of innocence is maintained”.
Warner and former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam were suspended amid allegations that they had offered US$40 000 to national associations of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) at a meeting in Trinidad on May 10 and 11, in return for their votes in the FIFA presidential election on June 1.
The London-based Press Association said it had seen the FIFA report indicating that there is “’overwhelming evidence” that Mohamed bin Hammam used bribery in his presidential campaign.
The full report of the FIFA Ethics Committee headed by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb said there was “comprehensive, convincing and overwhelming” proof that bribes had been paid to officials to support Bin Hammam’s campaign for the FIFA presidency, and that Warner had facilitated this.
Both Warner, from Trinidad and Tobago, and Qatar’s Bin Hammam, 62, were provisionally suspended on 29 May. (CMC)
