PORT-OF-SPAIN – Jack Warner has accused Caribbean officials of undoing their more than three decades of struggle for respect by caving in to certain demands handed down to them at their extraordinary congress staged in Zurich last week.
The former Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president came out swinging at his former colleagues on Friday in a media statement, following the announcement that a nine-member committee had been appointed to restore the functions of the CFU to normalcy over the next five months.
A media release from the CFU on Thursday said a normalisation committee had been formed and would execute ten tasks that would help to return the CFU to stability, following the fallout from the cash-for-votes scandal that tore apart the regional governing body earlier this year.
Warner said Caribbean officials should be ashamed to “accept the crumbs of the FIFA president” when in the very recent past they used to “dine at his table as equals”.
“The arrogance with which FIFA continues to ride roughshod over duly appointed officials of both the CFU and CONCACAF is not just unethical, but plain outright immoral,” he charged.
“It demonstrates the crass disrespect to the independence and sanctity of the constitutions of both organizations because FIFA imposes on these two organizations its will which is neither recognised by FIFA’s constitution nor the constitutions of the CFU and the CONCACAF.”
Warner said: “This clearly is the colonising of the CFU and the CONCACAF at best and, at worst, it represents a hostile takeover of organizations in which it has no locus standing or even a hierarchical relationship.
“One cannot help but wonder [why] this abuse is allowed to continue without a voice being heard from among [the FIFA’s] own membership and the wider football community.”
Warner, a former FIFA vice-president, said the regional officials should have challenged the hierarchy of the sport’s world governing body about a number of outstanding matters which have affected the administration of the game in the last few months.
“What was not discussed and that should have been brought to the table were:
• “the status of the FIFA Development Office in the Caribbean and the termination by the FIFA, without reason, of the contracts of all officers of this office;
• “the termination, by FIFA, of the contracts of the Trinidadian FIFA Referee Development Officers Ramesh Ramdhan and Merere Gonzales; again without explanation, without reason;
• “the suspension of the Caribbean’s only female president (from the British Virgin Islands) for 18 months, despite the FIFA president’s claim that the ‘future of football is feminine’;
• “the impact such . . . decisions would have on the development of football in the region;
• “FIFA’s . . . high-handed behaviour to Barbadian Lisle Austin, the legally-recognised acting president of CONCACAF;
• “. . .and the arbitrary postponement of the legal and constitutional meeting of the CFU Extraordinary Congress called for by 13 members.”
Warner, a former president of CONCACAF, said such “interference” would have evoked the ire of the world if FIFA had tried a similar thing with UEFA.
“The response would have been so vociferous [if it was UEFA] that even attempts by FIFA to apologise would have been drowned out,” he said.
“But to date not a word, not a voice, not an action of note to condemn FIFA’s new approach from anyone within FIFA and this leaves those of us who are conscious about maintaining the sacredness of constitutions in a state of bewilderment.”
He added: “FIFA must never be allowed to continue without a voice of dissent being raised. . . .
“The time has come to break the silence. One must no longer accept silence as affirming the wrong being perpetuated by FIFA. In this regard, I have decided to break my silence.”
Warner walked away from all of his positions after FIFA launched an ethics investigation against him last May. (CMC)
