Jack Warner predicting a "football tsunami" that will shock the world

By Duncan Mackay

May 28 – FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has promised a “football tsunami” during the next two days when he is due to appear before the Ethics Committee accused of corruption as the Presidential election threatens to turn into a farce.

Warner is due to leave for Zurich today to appear before the FIFA Ethics Committee where, along with Mohamed Bin Hammam, the President of the Asian Football Confederation, he is accused of being involved in bribes being distributed to members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).

Bin Hammam has also reported FIFA President Sepp Blatter to the Ethics Committee claiming that he must have known about the bribery allegations and he has now also been ordered to appear tomorrow.

It has cast a giant shadow over whether the Presidential election, in which Bin Hammam is challenging Blatter, can go ahead on Wednesday (June 1).

Warner, who is also the Minister of Works and Transport and chairman of the United National Congress (UNC) in Trinidad and Tobago, has promised that the hearing will be sensational.

“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,” he told the Trinidad Express.

“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, 68, the President of CONCACAF and a member of FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee since 1983, also claimed that if he is found guilty and suspended it will not bother him.

“I have been here for 29 consecutive years and if the worst happen, the worst happen,” he said.

“If that is what it comes to so be it, you must never get too attached to anything, it clouds your judgment and therefore whatever happens, happens, que sera sera.

“I am not even remotely bothered.

“I had planned to leave Saturday morning in any case because I have meetings on Sunday afternoon.

“They can do what they want, it doesn’t bother me.

“I have lived three score and almost ten and my Jack hasn’t been hanged as yet, why should it be hung now?

“By whom?

“The American Chuck Blazer?

“His American lawyer John Collins?

“Give me a break.

“I am not the faint-hearted you know.

“Let them go ahead, I have no problem with that.

“But I’ll tell you something, I will hold my head high to the very end because, I repeat here again, I am not guilty of a single iota of wrongdoing.”

Warner also claimed that he is being targeted because rivals from bigger countries are jealous of how much power he has within FIFA.

“I am in FIFA for 29 consecutive years, I was the first black man to have ever been in FIFA at this level,” he said.

“I have come from the smallest country ever to be on the FIFA Executive Committee.

“There is no country smaller than Trinidad and Tobago on FIFA’s Executive Committee.

“I am wielding more power in FIFA now than sometimes even the President, I must be the envy of others.

“In terms of football history my country does not even have one and therefore there are people out there who would ask why should I be there and what is my role, so I become the butt of all kinds of attacks and I accept this without any kind of anger because I understand people, this is the nature of human beings.”

Warner also hit back at Lord Triesman (pictured above right with Warner), the former leader of England’s disastrous bid to host the 2018 World Cup, who has claimed that the Trinidadian asked him to help fund him buy the television rights to last year’s tournament in South Africa so they could be shown on giant screens in Haiti, which had been devastated by an earthquake.

“What it [e-mail] says [is] to help Haiti get two big screens to see the World Cup for $1.6 million (£969,000), that’s the e-mail!” said Warner.

“Did it say anything about Jack Warner?

“Jack Warner asked to help Haiti to see the World Cup by putting some big screens, what is wrong with that?”

Warner also hit back at the United States, who were also angry that their bid to host the 2022 World Cup ended in disappointment when they were awarded to Qatar, the country here Bin Hammam is from.

“The US is accusing me of not working hard enough for them [during the World Cup bid],” he said.

“What more you want me to do, go in the people’s house and sleep with them?

“I can’t do that!

“I did for the US all I could have done.”

Warner claimed that was the reason behind Blazer’s decision to report him to the Ethics Committee.

“There has been some resentment still and the feeling is that I should not be talking to him [Bin Hammam] or his friends,” said Warner.

“I voted for the US like Mr Blazer and I, like Mr Blazer, was devastated over the fact that the US lost.

“But I will not allow that to impugn Mr Bin Hammam’s character or to destroy our friendship.

“I am not that kind of person and if Mr Blazer and they want to do that, let them go ahead.”

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