Jack Warner, the suitcase man
JACK Warner is the man everybody wants to ask about that suitcase stuffed with cash.
Fifa’s former vice-president is a pivotal figure in the bribery allegations against South Africa in the indictment by the US Department of Justice.
He allegedly instructed a family member to fly to Paris and collect a suitcase filled with dollars from an as yet unnamed “high-ranking South African bid committee official”.
He allegedly told his sidekick Chuck Blazer that South Africa was willing to pay a R120-million bribe to win the right to host the 2010 World Cup.
He was arrested this week as US authorities pounced on Fifa officials implicated in corruption and appeared in court in Trinidad on Thursday. He was released from jail after complaining of exhaustion and was photographed hours later dancing at a political rally held by his Independent Liberal Party.
“If I have been thieving Fifa money for 30 years, who gave me the money? How come he is not charged? Why only persons from third world countries have been charged?” he asked supporters.
Warner, a former minister of national security of Trinidad and Tobago, is no stranger to controversy.
A forensic report, drawn up by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football — once headed by Warner — found in 2013 that he had “committed fraud against Concacaf and Fifa” and “violated the Fifa ethics code”. He was found to have turned a blind eye while Blazer, who had no employment contract, paid himself a Concacaf salary for 13 years.
He was also implicated in a World Cup 2006 ticket reselling scandal that earned his son a R12-million fine from Fifa.
Warner resigned from all his Fifa positions in 2011, which resulted in the abrupt end of all investigations into his conduct by the world soccer body.