Ev­i­dence ob­tained by the British Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC) ap­pears to back up al­le­ga­tions by for­mer Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (FA) chair­man Lord Tries­man of wrong­do­ing by FI­FA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er. An e-mail ob­tained be­tween Warn­er and Tries­man in Feb­ru­ary 2010, may call for FI­FA to open an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Warn­er's con­duct as FI­FA vice pres­i­dent. Speak­ing to a par­lia­men­tary se­lect com­mit­tee ear­li­er this month Tries­man claimed four mem­bers of the FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee made "un­eth­i­cal re­quests" dur­ing the bid­ding race for 2018 World Cup.

Tries­man al­leged Warn­er asked the FA for mon­ey to build an ed­u­ca­tion cen­tre in Trinidad and to buy TV rights to the 2010 World Cup on be­half of Haiti. In the e-mail ob­tained by BBC Warn­er asks Tries­man to as­sist FI­FA in pur­chas­ing the TV rights for Haiti. In the e-mail Warn­er men­tions a com­pa­ny had bought the rights for US $1.6 mil­lion, but he (Warn­er) would be able to get the fig­ure re­duced. FI­FA, in re­sponse to the e-mail, told BBC they were the ul­ti­mate own­er of out­door broad­cast rights to the 2010 World Cup and no pub­lic view­ing li­cence was ever grant­ed to Haiti.

FI­FA told the BBC it had no dis­cus­sions any­where in the world for an amount as big as US $1.6 mil­lion.

BBC sports ed­i­tor David Bond said FI­FA's re­sponse "pos­es se­ri­ous ques­tions over the deal Warn­er was try­ing to arrange with the FA." Warn­er had pre­vi­ous­ly de­nied Tries­man's al­le­ga­tions. FI­FA had not con­firmed its ethics com­mit­tee would add that al­le­ga­tion to the charge sheet faced by Warn­er. The FA had launched its own in­quiry, call­ing in Queen's Coun­cil James Dinge­mans to com­pile a re­port for FI­FA.

Calls made to Warn­er's cell­phone by the T&T Guardian last night were not an­swered.

JACK WARN­ER'S E-MAIL TO LORD TRIES­MAN

Dear David:

My apolo­gies for this be­lat­ed re­sponse to your won­der­ful of­fer of as­sis­tance to Haiti for which I am re­al­ly pleased. The peo­ple need all the help that we can give. I made a vis­it to Haiti last week­end to meet with the pres­i­dent of the Haiti FF (Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion) to as­cer­tain first hand the needs of our foot­ball fam­i­ly.

A re­port has since been done which out­lined their needs and pro­pos­als to meet these needs in the short, medi­um and long-term. The re­port is in­clud­ed for your in­for­ma­tion.

Based on this, I will leave it up to you to de­ter­mine the best op­tions of the FA as to how you all can as­sist. The FI­FA, be­sides fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, is pro­vid­ing them with large TV screens placed at two foot­ball sta­dia (at which sta­dia foot­ball can no longer be played in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture) so that all Haitians can see the 2010 World Cup.

How­ev­er, be­fore the earth­quake the own­er of the rights had charged them US$1.6 mil­lion for the rights, a fee which they had agreed to pay. I have since spo­ken to the own­ers and can this fig­ure be re­duced sub­stan­tial­ly. If you be­lieve that you can as­sist them in any­way by con­tribut­ing in part or in whole to the pur­chase of these rights I am sure all of Haiti will be eter­nal­ly grate­ful. Thanks again for your as­sis­tance you can give and I do look for­ward to hear­ing from you soon.

Re­gards

Jack