A de­fi­ant Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er last night dis­missed the find­ings of a Con­ca­caf probe in­to his for­mer tenure in the or­gan­i­sa­tion yes­ter­day, say­ing it was base­less and ma­li­cious.How­ev­er, even in the face of Warn­er's stance, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was stunned by the con­tents of the re­port and if the al­le­ga­tions prove true, she would make a de­ci­sion on Warn­er's sta­tus in her Cab­i­net.

In a press re­lease last evening, Warn­er said he had not had time to read the full re­port which de­tailed the al­le­ga­tions against him, and which was pre­sent­ed by Sir David Sim­mons at a Con­ca­caf con­gress in Pana­ma yes­ter­day.The re­port found Warn­er did not dis­close to Con­ca­caf, which rep­re­sents soc­cer in North and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, or world gov­ern­ing body Fi­fa that the US$25.9 mil­lion Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya was built on land owned by his com­pa­nies.

How­ev­er, not­ing he had turned his back on foot­ball two years ago and has had no in­ter­est in any foot­ball-re­lat­ed mat­ter since then, Warn­er said: "Con­ca­caf's re­port to­day is of no con­cern to me and as far as I am aware it is base­less and ma­li­cious."Con­ca­caf lawyers have been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion for sev­er­al months with my lawyers who have in­struc­tions in this mat­ter," he said."I am ad­vised that the mat­ter is a con­trac­tu­al mat­ter for which my lawyers are deal­ing with. sep­a­rate and apart from any Con­ca­caf-or­gan­ised com­mit­tee."

Deal­ing specif­i­cal­ly about al­le­ga­tions that the Joao Have­lange Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence was owned by him and not Con­ca­caf, Warn­er said: "It does seem iron­i­cal that Con­ca­caf had been pay­ing rent for a prop­er­ty all these years which, ac­cord­ing to them, be­longed to Con­ca­caf. In ad­di­tion, it is al­so alarm­ing that Fi­fa would in­vest in a prop­er­ty that is nei­ther owned by them, Con­ca­caf, or the lo­cal foot­ball body in clear vi­o­la­tion of their statutes, in­clu­sive of goal statutes and reg­u­la­tions."

Warn­er not­ed that al­though Sim­mons in­ter­viewed 38 peo­ple, he did not speak to Have­lange (for­mer pres­i­dent of Fi­fa) him­self. He said he was sure Have­lange "would have been able to en­light­en them.""Fi­nal­ly, if af­ter 20 years of be­ing the pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf all its com­mit­tee could have found is some base­less claim against me in­volv­ing the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, then I will con­tin­ue to sleep very sound­ly at nights," he said.

Speak­ing to CNC3 from last night from Wash­ing­ton, where she is on Gov­ern­ment busi­ness, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­mit­ted to be­ing shocked by the re­port's rev­e­la­tions.She said the re­port told "a tale of a trag­ic sce­nario," adding if the al­le­ga­tions were true, "I have ac­tion to take."The PM said, how­ev­er, she would like to see the re­port be­fore mak­ing any fi­nal judg­ment."Nat­ur­al jus­tice de­mands that I see the re­port first," she said.

Click to down­load­The Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and CaribbeanAs­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball (Con­ca­caf) In­tegri­ty Com­mit­tee re­port.