Former FIFA official Jack Warner makes political return in Caribbean
From The Australian
A FORMER FIFA official accused of pocketing $462,000 of Australian football’s money has made a political comeback in the Caribbean.
Jack Warner has won a seat in parliament in Trinidad & Tobago a few months after a regional sports group’s ethics panel accused him of enriching himself through fraud.
Warner allegedly stole a donation that Football Federation Australia gave to the Trinidad & Tobago football federation in 2010.
At the time he was being lobbied by the FIFA to support its world cup bid, which ultimately failed.
Warner has denied the allegations.
He resigned in April as national security minister of Trinidad and Tobago after being accused by an ethics panel at CONCACAF, the Caribbean, North and Central American international football body, of enriching himself through fraud.
Now it appears that Warner has easily won back a seat in parliament.
He thanked a crowd of cheering supporters late on Monday after the results showed he received more than twice as many votes as ruling party candidate Khadijah Ameen to reclaim the seat of Chaguanas West.
The district is a fast-growing community in central Trinidad where Warner was first elected as parliamentarian in the 1990s.
“Thank you for this resounding victory,” Warner told celebrating supporters at the headquarters of the Independent Liberal Party that he founded this year to help keep his political career afloat.
Warner is also a former FIFA vice president who was implicated in a bribery scandal while opposing group president Sepp Blatter’s re-election two years ago.
In April, Warner claimed FIFA gifted him $6 million toward an athletics training centre in Trinidad to gain Caribbean support for Blatter’s first election as president of the soccer federation in 1998.
He claimed it was part of a deal in May 1998 with then-FIFA President Joao Havelange.
FIFA has declined to comment in detail “on any allegations made by Jack Warner.”
Warner’s political revival in Trinidad was met with a subdued response by Persad-Bissessar. The country’s leader was once a staunch political ally of Warner’s but she blasted him during the by-election campaign and insisted that he had to answer questions about the corruption allegations in the soccer group’s report.
Persad-Bissessar’s coalition government still controls 27 of the 41 parliamentary seats in Trinidad & Tobago, a leading supplier of natural gas just off Venezuela’s coast.
PHOTO: Former FIFA executive Jack Warner has won seat in parliament in Trinidad & Tobago a few months after being accused of enriching himself through fraud. Source: AP
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