GENEVA – FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, who faces an ethics hearing in soccer’s widening bribery scandal today, has predicted a “football tsunami” is about to strike the sport’s governing body.
Warner, who said there was “not a single iota” of wrongdoing on his part, will answer questions at FIFA headquarters along with president Sepp Blatter and the man challenging the incumbent in next week’s election, Mohammed bin Hammam.
“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,” Warner said in comments reported by newspapers in his home country Trinidad and Tobago.
“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.”
Warner said the “attacks” on him were based on envy.
“I am wielding more power in FIFA now than sometimes even the president, I must be the envy of others.”
He was also dismissive about an email, published in the British media, in which he reportedly asked the English FA to help purchase TV rights to the 2010 World Cup on behalf of Haiti.
“What it says [is] to help Haiti get two big screens to see the World Cup for $1.6 million, that’s the email. Did it say anything about Jack Warner? Jack Warner asked to help Haiti to see the World Cup by putting [up] some big screens – what is wrong with that?” (Reuters)
