By Paul Nicholson
May 2 – After an investigation taking more than a year, FIFA’s investigatory chamber has referred Gordon Derrick’s case to the adjudicatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics committee. The case is potentially one of the most controversial and politically laden decisions FIFA’s court will have had to make – though it has yet to rule against a single case from its investigators.
Derrick is President of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and General Secretary of the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA). FIFA’s chief investigator Dr Cornel Borbély has recommended he receive a four-year ban from football and a CHF15,000 fine.
Derrick is charged with “the alleged violation of articles 13 (General rules of conduct), 15 (Loyalty), 19 (Conflicts of interest) and 20 (Offering and accepting gifts and other benefits) of the FIFA Code of Ethics.”
The detail of the charges are not outlined in the FIFA press release but they are believed to relate to historical allegations in Antigua rather than to CFU business.
Derrick has cut an embattled figure at the CFU in recent months as FIFA and CONCACAF have both worked unsuccessfully to remove him from office. Now it looks like FIFA’s Ethics committee could do the political work for them.
In the election for CFU president in July 2016, Trinidad’s David John Williams was supported behind the scenes by FIFA and CONCACAF. Williams lost the election, but the challenges to Derrick haven’t stopped. At CFU meetings in Aruba two weeks ago Derrick was challenged to stand down by two executive committee members who later resigned.
CFU members have reportedly been approached by CONCACAF and FIFA officials with threats that CFU money due from FIFA will be withheld until Derrick is removed. Only then will the cash be released for the CFU to continue with development and competition work.
The charges against Derrick seem to date back to a politically laden dispute in Antigua that Insideworldfootball wrote at length about in 2013. Derrick has refused to discuss the detail of the charges but it was reported at that time FIFA GOAL Development money had not been used to develop a training ground project on the island (though it subsequently turned out that this had happened before Derrick was in position within the ABFA). Subsequent projects did meet FIFA requirements and inspection – though no detail has been released.
More controversially, the ABFA borrowed $1 million from the Antigua Commercial Bank to finance its national team preparation through its Barracuda club side in the USL (the US third tier of semi-professional football at the time). Derrick at the time was a director at the bank. The borrowing was secured against the training ground but later turned into a government loan when FIFA said that the finance broke their rules.
It seems likely that these instances were the focus of the FIFA investigation, though both were decisions taken by the ABFA executive committee and follow up enquiries by Insideworldfootball in 2013 indicated that all money had been accounted for.
Antigua has Chet Greene as its sports minister. Greene, who was banned by FIFA from football for corruption, was the long time boss of Antiguan football and a close associate of disgraced former CONCACAF president Jack Warner.
On the island he is a sworn enemy of Derrick and has frequently made that enmity known – including to Insideworldfootball. He is closely associated with and supported by Tyrum FC president Keithroy Black who has similarly run a campaign on the island against Derrick.
Greene was reportedly refused accreditation for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. He was caught up in a Rio 2016 ticket selling scandal that saw Antigua and Barbuda ticket allocations becoming available on the black market and via a corporate hospitality firm.
With such a politically charged local environment and a wider FIFA and CONCACAF executive that want to ‘break’ the Caribbean region for their own political control, Derrick looks like being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where he seems to have gone wrong is that the former national team player was focussed on getting matches played and improving his national team. He should perhaps have paid more attention to the politics than the playing.
With FIFA Ethics reportedly investigating the political interference of president Gianni Infantino in Africa’s presidential elections, this Caribbean story is very much in keeping with a continuing global political pattern and agenda from Zurich. And with FIFA’s Ethics chiefs (Borbely and head judge Joachim Eckert) both up for mandate renewal in a couple of weeks, the smart money would not be on Derrick winning at this stage.
FIFA’s press releases says: “In connection with the present proceedings, Mr Derrick has been provided with the relevant final report and has been invited to submit his position, including any evidence with regard to the content therein (art. 70 of the FIFA Code of Ethics), and he may request a hearing (art. 74 par. 2 of the FIFA Code of Ethics).”
Derrick says that he will make his case and that there is no evidence to support the claims of the investigators. But FIFA’s is a court that doesn’t always seem to need too much hard evidence. If he has taken or misappropriated money then hang him. But it still needs to be proved, whatever the political agenda.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734957055labto1734957055ofdlr1734957055owedi1734957055sni@n1734957055osloh1734957055cin.l1734957055uap1734957055