August 11 – Former Concacaf president and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner’s attempted re-entry into public life in Trinidad and Tobago has ended as fast as it begun after he failed to win election as a member of parliament in the country’s just completed elections.
Warner told local media that he was bowing out of politics, and that this election was his “last hurrah”.
Warner was contesting the election as an Independent Liberal Party (ILP) candidate for the Lopinot/Bon Air West seat. He is a former Chaguanas West MP and served as a Government Minister under the former People’s Partnership administration. He resigned his seat in April 2013, only to be re-elected as Chaguanas West MP, but this time as a member of the Independent Liberal Party, in July 2013. While in government he served as national security minister.
Warner still carries the tag of being ‘Football’s Most Wanted’ having been indicted on multiple counts of corruption by the US Justice department in 2015 as one of the key figures in the FIFAGate scandal.
While others have been brought to justice in the US, Warner has remained a free man in Trinidad, fighting extradition and seemingly supported by Trinidad and Tobago governments and judiciaries from having to justify to the US justice system and the rest of the world the $13 million+ he stole from football in his country and the Caribbean.
It seems the electorate in Trinidad have had enough of him as well.
This week a Trinidad and Tobago judge will rule on whether the FIFA Normalisation Committee, imposed by FIFA, has the legal authority to run football in the country following the removal of the Trinidad and Tobago FA board that was led by William Wallace. Essentially it is a case of deciding whether Trinidad and Tobago, having signed up to FIFA’s rules, doesn’t have to obey them and that the law of the land takes precedence.
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