Posted on December 30, 2011
By Michael Lewis
TropiGol.com Editor
It was arguably FIFA’s biggest scandal of the year and most likely CONCACAf’s biggest in years, if not the biggest.
The bribery scandal that led to the resignation of confederation president Jack Warner, who also stepped down as a FIFA vice president and the suspensions of several Caribbean Football Union officials that lasted from weeks to months.
It also gave CONCACAF a black eye, although some skeptical observers might claim it gave the organization an even blacker eye.
Regardless, it shook the confederation down to its foundations, essentially pitting the North and Central American nations on one side and the Caribbean countries on the other.
CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer of New York City, the whistle blower that gave light to the bribery scandal, stepped down as of Dec. 31 to pursue other soccer interests. He is part of a group that includes former New York Jets running back Curtis Martin and former New York Cosmos goalkeeper and Red Bulls TV analyst Shep Messing.
Let’s take it from the top:
Blazer blew the whistle on Warner and former Asian Football Confederation president Mohammed bin Hamman with allegations that they tried to bribe CFU officials to vote for the Qatari against incumbent Sepp Blatter in the recent FIFA president election.
That created a firestorm in CONCACAF.
Lisle Austin of Barbados, a CONCACAF vice president who had been prompted to acting president, claimed he had fired Blazer. Blazer said he was still in charge and Austin was replaced by the confederation’s executive committee as it claimed he had violated CONCACAF statues. Austin recently was suspended by FIFA from all soccer activities for a year. Warner stepped down as FIFA vice president and his CONCACAF post.
Austin told The Sunday Independent, “I have repeatedly asked for an independent forensic audit of CONCACAF’s finances, but to no avail. My struggle is to bring transparency and democracy to regional football, and indeed FIFA.”
Honduran Alfredo Hawit, who was named the acting president, is still in that position.
FIFA suspended Caribbean and Jamaican soccer official Horace Burrell for six months for his part in a bribery scandal. Burrell, a long-time ally of Warner and a member of FIFA’s disciplinary committee, had to bow out of the CFU presidential election.
FIFA’s ethics committee ruled three months of the Jamaican federation president’s ban will be deferred for a probationary period of two years.
Three other Caribbean officials also were suspended:
* British Virgin Islands president Franka Pickering, one of the most experienced in world soccer, was banned for 18 months.
* Domincan Republic soccer federation president Osiris Guzman was suspended for 30 days. Fifteen days of his ban was deffered for six months.
* St. Vincent and the Grenadines general secretary Ian Hypolite also was banned for 30 days and had a similar deferment.
Five CFU members received warnings from the FIFA ethics committee, including FIFA committee members Yves Jean-Bart, the Haiti soccer president, and Richard Groden, Trinidad & Tobago’s general secretary.
Ex-international referee Mark Bob Forde also was warned, along with his fellow Barbados official David Hinds and Burrell’s federation general secretary Horace Reid.
The cases against St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Joseph Delves and the Cayman Islands’ David Fredericks were dropped because they had left soccer.
Blazer himself has been under scrutiny by FBI, according to Andrew Jennings, an investigative reporter who covers FIFA. It was not immediately known whether Blazer resigned due to the investigation.
The FBI is examining documents that appear to show confidential payments to offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas to Blazer, according to the Sunday Independent.
According to the newspaper, the FBI is investigating evidence that payments have come from the Caribbean Football Union, a regional football organization that was controlled by former CONCACAF president Jack Warner.
Because no one was put in please permanently in CONCACAF, FIFA was considering taking over the confederation. It could very well happen if the political paralysis at the top of the confederation was not resolved soon, according to British journalist Keir Radnedge.
Blatter discussed that possibility after a two-day FIFA executive committee meeting in Tokyo, www.KeirRadnedge.com reported.
According to the website, deputy general secretary general Ted Howard was leading the process to identify a successor to Blazer.
Asked about the fact that CONCACAF has not had a confirmed president in place for the past six months, Blatter replied:
“This is a situation which is not comfortable and not acceptable,” Blatter told the website of the fact there is no true CONCACAF president. “But you have difficult problems besetting this confederation. CONCACAF has an acting president in Mr. Hawit from Honduras who possibly could intervene to organize something and bring this confederation back to the international scene but this has not been done.
“The main reason is that there is a court case pending in the Bahamas and while this court has yet to take a decision on whether to qualify or disqualify the acting president the entire activity of the confederation is blocked.
“Over the next few months FIFA may have no other solution but to intervene as we would if a national association were not working in accord with FIFA statutes. But there is a legal aspect: a confederation is not directly a member of FIFA so we will have to wait.”
On Thursday, Warner claimed that FIFA sold him World Cup television rights for Trinidad & Tobago for $1 in return to support FIFA president Sepp Blatter in elections. Warner, who currently is Trinidad & Tobago;s minister of works and infrastructure, claimed FIFA, through a Mexican company, sold him the rights to the 1998 World Cup for $1. Warner said the money he made from that “was used primarily to assist in the development of football in Trinidad and Tobago.”
“This was just after Blatter had won the FIFA presidency following a most brutal campaign against Lennart Johansson, a campaign in which Bin Hammam and I played critical roles in support of Mr.Blatter,” Warner said.
In his statement Warner said FIFA sold him the rights to more World Cup after he aided in Blatter’s re-elections in 2002 and 2006.
“President Blatter sold me, not the CFU, the World Cup TV rights for 2002 and 2006, no doubt in appreciation of the work I did [with Bin Hammam] for his re-election. The sale of these rights was used to develop Caribbean football,” Warner said.
And CONCACAF is without a general secretary or president to run things.
When a new general secretary is selected, it will be his charge to select which city for the headquarters to be housed. If it is a Central American, he night want the offices to be closer to his home and have it in Miami. Of course, there is always the possibility the new GS might want to live in New York City, the confederation’s headquarters for two decades.
The scandal is sure to have verberations for weeks, months, if not years to come.
Photo: Chuck Blazer was the whistle blower of the CONCACAF bribery scandal, which started a series of events that could be felt for years. Photo by Joy Rubenstein
Categories: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Caribbean, Cayman Islands, Central America, CONCACAF, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, North America, Panama, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S.A.
Tags: Alfredo Hawit, Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF, Curtis Martin, FIFA< Jack Warner, Horace Burrell, Lisle Austin, Mohammed bin Hammam, Sepp Blatter, Shep Messing, Ted Howard
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