CONCACAF has had its three past presidents banned, indicted, charged or convicted.
Not a particularly fine track record..
And, with the exception of Jack Warner and Jeff Webb, a significant bulk of the accused or indicted are either US citizens, US companies or US residents.
The rest of those charged form a second group that hails, literally, from all the countries of Central and South America.
All of this notwithstanding, it is the CFU – the regional sub-body of CONCACAF – which took and is still taking the fiercest hit.
Given that the first scandal broke in Trinidad & Tobago in 2011, when a FIFA presidential candidate made the seriously wrong move to try and influence the vote in his favour, aided and abetted by a « Jack of all trades », scandal and corruption became quickly synonymous with the Caribbean men (and women) who administer football in the region.
But at close scrutiny, that narrative is plain wrong.
The oversized former GenSec of the Confederation claimed integrity at first by delivering both Jack and Mohamed to the gallows, only to become the focal point of subsequent scrutiny and complete humiliation: the law found that he had probably been the biggest (sic !) crook of them all and cheated taxes in the millions (a nigh religious sacrilege in the USA) .
So, the c(r)ookie crumbled: the first whistleblower, a female from T&T who had gracefully recorded some of the T&T action of her employers, got herself a plum job at CONCACAF and later as a FIFA development officer(!), the big man whistleblower got himself a wire and a keychain that recorded the tales of former associates and random third parties alike, while some righteous Members sang all sorts of songs and thus got themselves off the 40-K-Dollar-hook.
Some Caribbean players refused to cooperate at first and were duly banned.
One key player refused to pay back the funds to this day and still holds senior office: FIFA’s investigators started to investigate, it is said, but nothing seems to have come of that particular Caribbean tale as yet.
Introduce December 2015 and find a new reality altogether.
The Confederation is now run by ‘the Executive Committee’, a new GenSec (acting) presides but, the affairs of the crumbling State are in truth and fact run by outsiders with no knowledge of anything but how to charge exorbitant amounts of legal, consultancy and PR fees (some of them were also involved with the US 2022 Bid) and therefore everything is just fine. Or is it ?
Some lowly Members of the Confederation are now mighty pissed off about the way things are being handled. Their feeling of being sidelined is not unusual, and would generally be nothing much would be to report about. But this time it is different.
They, an ever-increasing number of them, have taken offence at the present regime and demand either the immediate appointment of an interim president or an extraordinary elective congress (see insideworldfootball story http://bit.ly/1SlrVGv). But the CONCACAF lawyers, hired guns who seem to be living rather well off the funds of an organisation that has no funds to pay outstanding third party bills, disagree and claim that all is hunkydory.
But is it?
What happened as a consequence of late, is a gradual slipping away of core people who made up the Confederation. People who did the work of the confederation and were, really, bringing real change in their areas of specialism.
One insider familiar with events told us: “Look, if the US and Canada think that they can run things the way they want, they should think again and quickly.” He continued : “The CFU Members are the vast majority of the Membership of CONCACAF. Many of them think that we should form our own Confederation and let the Americans do what they want.”
With 25+ or 30+ potential Members, a Caribbean Football Confederation that leaves CONCACAF behind would become a strategically important body to reckon with.
Its voting power is one thing but the dream of many to run an organisation that « takes care of the little folk » is by no means merely wishful thinking anymore.
Another source told Insideworldfootball that “Gulati is damaged goods, he was far too close to Blazer and it is simply uncanny how the man can still walk around and conduct USSF’s business as if there had never been a major DOJ investigation. Nobody understands what’s really going on, except that the US and Canada and paid consultants are running CONCACAF.”
From what we are told, the next CONCACAF president is going to be a man called Victor Montagliani, a close Gulati ally, already waiting in the wings: “They are quietly building up Victor because they all know that the Caribbean would never accept an American as president, nor General Secretary again,” our source said. “After all, it is the Americans who committed the most crooked deals and what is the result ? The Caribbean is getting the brunt of it for no apparent reason at all!”
People are not happy in the Caribbean sunshine and odd things seem to be going on: this is politics, and those who control the money are controlling the shots.
And that’s not the Caribbean Members. Not as yet.