PORT OF SPAIN: As far football is concerned Jack Warner is gone but certainly not forgotten.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Works walked away from all football, including his vice-presidency of FIFA and his presidencies of CONCACAF and the Caribbean Football Union, after being the subject of bribery allegations.
The former Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation special adviser is due a pension from the world authority which could earn him as much as $36,238-per-year until he turns 96 years old.
However FIFA has confirmed the pension is being withheld. It would not confirm whether this was in connection with inquiries into the whereabouts of development funds.
Trinidad’s football is in chaos after a court-appointed marshal seized all removable assets from the federation’s head office last Wednesday on the instructions of 13 members of the 2006 World Cup squad.
The raid followed the TTFF’s failure to make a second interim payment of $724,000 that had been due to the “Soca Warriors” since October 2011. The players had already received a payment of $1,140,384 earlier last year in response to an order made by High Court Judge Devindra Rampersad in February 2011.
Warner reportedly missed a court deadline last Friday to come up with a statement of accounts concerning World Cup revenues.
He was also the subject of a report in The Sunday Times at the weekend questioning the distribution of FIFA cash which had been entrusted to the TTFF and was supposedly bound to assist in rebuilding sports facilities in Haiti after the devastating earthquake.