June 4 – With the net tightening around him after being arrested and bailed for his alleged role in the ongoing FIFA corruption scandal, Jack Warner has taken to the airwaves in his native Trinidad to say he now fears for his life.
The former FIFA vice-president, who four years ago predicted a footballing “Tsunami”, made a bizarre television appearance in which he said could no longer stay silent and claimed he had evidence to incriminate FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
Warner claimed he had documentation that could prove a link between key Fifa officials and the 2010 Trinidad and Tobago elections. “I will no longer keep secrets for them,” he said.
The former CONCACAF boss, who has spent much of career as a government minister, alleged the documents in his position “also deal with my knowledge of transactions at FIFA, including – but not limited to – its president, Mr Sepp Blatter.”
He did not elaborate on this but added: “Not even death will stop the avalanche that is coming. The die is cast. There can be no turning back. Let the chips fall where they fall.”
The televised address, a paid political advertisement, added: “I reasonably actually fear for my life.”
Warner’s appearance came just hours after a transcript was made public of former FIFA executive Chuck Blazer’s admission that he and other members of FIFA’s all-powerful executive committee were bribed in return for voting for South Africa’s bid for the 2010 World Cup.
The US Department of Justice said last week that Blazer, desperately ill with cancer, had pleaded guilty to receiving $750,000 from Warner after the latter agreed to vote for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup.
Blazer, 70, first made the admission in testimony to a New York judge in 2013, the details of which had not been publicly available until now, following a petition from three New York-based reporters.
It revealed how the judge in the case, Raymond Dearie, referred to FIFA as a “racketeering influenced corrupt organisation”, the same terminology used in cases of organised crime, and only allowed the hearing to proceed after the Brooklyn courtroom had been locked.
It’s unclear exactly what Warner is threatening to expose.
He says he has compiled documents and cheques that he claims demonstrate “the link between FIFA, its funding and me”, as well as what he alleges are links between FIFA and the United National Congress, one of the parties in Trinidad and Tobago’s ruling coalition.
Warner says he has given all these documents and cheques to a third party, “beyond my own reach”, and will give permission for this third party to release the documents. He says his lawyers are talking to law enforcement officials, presumably including those in the US who are seeking his extradition.
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