Forget Sven, Jack Warner is the Real Scandal

January 25th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

While the tabloid headline writers in England are hyperventilating from excitement, the workers inside the FIFA castle have to be smiling ear to ear as they see all of the attention given to the Sven-Goran Eriksson saga.

The smiles mask a fear though.

FIFA has to be asking itself, what happens when the Sven scandal goes away and hungry journalists turn their attention to an even worse scandal, that of Jack Warner?

For a good summary of the Warner situation, you can go here (you have to register but the LA Times is a decent paper so go ahead and sign up). Basically what we know is that Warner who is FIFA vice president, president of CONCACAF and a “special advisor” to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, has worked the system so that he is set to make up to $8 million from the sale of his country’s World Cup tickets.

Warner maintains he has done nothing wrong and claims that people are out to get him because he is buddy-buddy with FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Here is an example of the man’s thinking. After you read it, you’ll wonder how he ever became in charge on anything.

Meanwhile, FIFA is investigating the matter and its spokespeople have said that things do look fishy, but check back with them in a bit.

Why should you care? Well, this is egregious even by FIFA’s historically sketchy standards. It would be naïve to say that the system isn’t set up to benefit those in power, but now that this scandal has been blown into the open FIFA owes it to the people who watch its sport – and pays its bureaucratic salaries – to fix the mess.

Jack Warner shouldn’t receive a dime from the sale of World Cup tickets. He should be forced to resign from his multiple football-related roles. And FIFA should take swift action to make sure something like this never happens again.

One more thing FIFA should do. It should grant media accreditation to Lasana Liburd of the Trinidad Express who broke this story. FIFA has denied Liburd’s request to cover T&T during the World Cup.

This is a shame because while Liburd sits at home, some of those tabloid reporters covering Sven will be in the press box. You have to think that FIFA prefers it that way.

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chris

Is the guy able to put together a cohesive sentence? And please, we can forgive Michael Jordan for talking about himself in the third person because he was awesome. Jack Warner talking about Jack Warner as Jack Warner just seems like he’s trying to increase the number of Google alerts he gets on his name.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2006/jack-warner-cleared-fifa-proves-it-is-useless.html Jack Warner Cleared; FIFA Proves it is Useless – FIFA World Cup 2006 – World Cup 2006 Blog

[...] If you needed any further evidence that FIFA is a worthless organization run by a bunch of corrupt idiots then we have the story for you. The world’s governing soccer body today decided that would take no action against its vice-president Jack Warner who has used his position to fill his family’s bank account through the sale of World Cup tickets. Here is the background for those who are just tuning into this shameful story of power and greed. In February, FIFA said that Warner had violated its “code of ethics.” Today, FIFA showed that it has no ethics. [...]
http://www.socawarriors.net Peter

Thanks for posting this.
Jack Warner is as bad as ever.
The JWFF (TTFF) paid our World Cup warriors just US$900 for playing in Germany.
900!
The players are taking the TTFF to court, because a lot more was promised, so JW blacklisted them, refusing to call on them for international games.
We just played the CONCACAF Gold Cup with a team of reserves.
Jack Warner is a cancer.