Richard Lord

FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er yes­ter­day plead­ed not guilty to al­le­ga­tions of bribery on the eve of to­day's hear­ing of the mat­ter be­fore the Ethics Com­mit­tee of foot­ball's world gov­ern­ing body in Zurich, Switzer­land. Warn­er leaves Port-of-Spain to­day for the meet­ing and will re­turn home on Thurs­day. On Wednes­day, FI­FA will vote to elect a new Pres­i­dent. Warn­er told re­porters in an in­ter­view at the Red House yes­ter­day that he would re­lease his full state­ment to­day. "I have noth­ing to an­swer to," he added.

He said all the al­le­ga­tions were be­ing made be­cause of the elec­tions. He said the last time there was such con­tro­ver­sy in FI­FA was in the run-up to the 2002 elec­tions when there was a con­test for the top post.

He said be­cause there was again a con­test for the same post, these de­vel­op­ments were tak­ing place.

"I am not sur­prised...I would have thought that you guys would have seen through this," Warn­er said.

"FI­FA pol­i­tics is far, far big­ger than the pol­i­tics you are see­ing here, it makes our pol­i­tics look like child's play. "At the end of the day, if even the worst hap­pens, I am still pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf...At the end of the day, you be­lieve the gen­er­al sec­re­tary of Con­ca­caf can't work with me? Warn­er said he was al­most 70 years old "and my Jack hasn't been hung as yet, why it should be hung now and by whom? The Amer­i­can Chuck Blaz­er (Con­ca­caf Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber), his Amer­i­can lawyer John Collins? Give me a break. Give me a break.

"I am not the faint-heart­ed, you know...Let them go ahead I have no prob­lem with that," he said.

"I will hold my head high to the very end be­cause I re­peat here again to­tal­ly I am not guilty of a sin­gle io­ta of wrong­do­ing." "Re­spond­ing to an e-mail , which was be­ing claimed to be an­oth­er act of wrong­do­ing on Warn­er's part, the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter ques­tioned the se­ri­ous­ness of that al­le­ga­tion.

He said the e-mail sim­ply re­quest­ed as­sis­tance for Haiti to get two big screens at a cost of more than $1 mil­lion to see the World Cup. "What is wrong with that?" Warn­er asked. "A sim­ple e-mail about Haiti to get some big screens, that make news, boy I am amazed." Asked about his re­la­tions with FI­FA pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter, Warn­er said: "Just bear in mind that I am (we are) the on­ly con­fed­er­a­tion that has not said how we vot­ing. He came to Mi­a­mi. I told him that I have to hear Mr bin Ham­mam (pres­i­dent of the Asian Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion) and I was leav­ing for Trinidad, since he couldn't come to the US, we shall hear him in the Caribbean.

I did that. I knew they weren't pleased with it but I did it for fair­play." Warn­er in­sist­ed that he did not "be­lieve I should rub­ber-stamp Mr Blat­ter. "We have had our dif­fer­ences in the past, very se­ri­ous ones too, that didn't in­flu­ence me in any way, but I want­ed to hear Mr bin Ham­mam...I thought that was the cor­rect thing to do." Warn­er re­mind­ed that bin Ham­mam was the Qatari who led the cam­paign for the fight for the World Cup 2022. "It was Mr bin Ham­mam's Qatar who beat the US (bid) for the World Cup fi­nals in 2022, and there has been some re­sent­ment still, and the feel­ing is that I should not be talk­ing to him or his friend," Warn­er said.

"I vot­ed for the US , and I, like Mr Blaz­er, was dev­as­tat­ed over the fact that the US (had) lost. "But I would not al­low that to im­pugn Mr bin Ham­mam's char­ac­ter or de­stroy our friend­ship...I am not that kind of per­son and if Mr Blaz­er and them want to do that let them go ahead, I will not." Warn­er then said a foot­ball bomb­shell was about to hit the world. "In the next cou­ple days, you will see a foot­ball tsuna­mi that will hit FI­FA and the world and will shock you," he said. "The time has come when I must stop play­ing dead. So you'll see it, it's com­ing, trust me it is com­ing by now and Mon­day." In re­sponse to oth­er ques­tions, Warn­er said he had been in FI­FA for the past 29 years "and if the worst hap­pens, the worst hap­pens. He said: "If it comes so, so be it. You must nev­er get too at­tached to any­thing, it colours your judg­ment and there­fore what ever hap­pens, hap­pens, que sera sera. I am not even re­mote­ly both­ered. They can do what they want, it does not both­er me."

He not­ed that he was again on the world stage. He said his me­dia black­out was not di­rect­ed at the me­dia in T&T, but those in Britain and oth­er for­eign na­tions. He said he was not about to re­tire.

"You don't re­tire when you are per­ceived to be un­der pres­sure," he in­sist­ed. Warn­er told re­porters yes­ter­day that he was "the first black man that was ever in FI­FA at this lev­el." He said he was from the small­est na­tion ever to be on FI­FA's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee. "I am wield­ing more pow­er in FI­FA now than some­times the pres­i­dent and there­fore I must be the en­vy of oth­ers," he said. "In terms of foot­ball his­to­ry, my col­leagues don't even have one and there­fore there are peo­ple out there who will ask them­selves why should I be there and what is my role?"

He said he had be­come the tar­get of all kinds of at­tacks, which he ac­cept­ed with­out any anger. "FI­FA has 24 per­sons on the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, Eu­rope has nine, if the oth­er 15 peo­ple are crooks and thieves and no good and so on, how come Eng­land on­ly got one vote?" Warn­er said. "Why is it the oth­er peo­ple in Eu­rope didn't vote for Eng­land? And no­body wants to an­swer that ques­tion. "Why is it Jack Warn­er is be­ing held as the per­son who bring them down? So I am Man­drake then. "The US is ac­cus­ing me of not work­ing hard enough for them. What more do you want me to do? "I did for the US all I could have done. "I know when I pro­pose to leave FI­FA, but it won't be on a walk­ing stick or when I reach 75."