Nigel Si­mon

Act­ing pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf, Lisle Austin, yes­ter­day re­mained firm in his views that for­mer gen­er­al sec­re­tary Chuck Blaz­er has been fired by the fed­er­a­tion, de­spite a state­ment on its of­fi­cial Web site which said he had no au­thor­i­ty to dis­miss the Amer­i­can. Blaz­er was dis­missed af­ter mak­ing al­le­ga­tions of bribery against the zone's pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er which led to him be­ing sus­pend­ed by FI­FA. Austin, a se­nior vice-pres­i­dent, has since been el­e­vat­ed to head the zone, and on Tues­day, Blaz­er was fired. The Web site, how­ev­er, de­scribed Austin's ac­tion as tak­en with­out au­thor­i­ty and said un­der the Con­ca­caf statutes, ju­ris­dic­tion over the gen­er­al sec­re­tary rest­ed sole­ly with the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee. "Fur­ther, a ma­jor­i­ty of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers have ad­vised Austin that he does not have the au­thor­i­ty to take such ac­tion," ac­cord­ing to the state­ment on the Web site.

"Chuck Blaz­er con­tin­ues as Con­ca­caf gen­er­al sec­re­tary and with the full au­thor­i­ty of his of­fice. "The Con­fed­er­a­tion con­tin­ues its nor­mal op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the Gold Cup com­menc­ing on June 5 at Cow­boys Sta­di­um in Dal­las." Austin, how­ev­er, fired back at the state­ment, claim­ing his de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate Blaz­er was tak­en af­ter re­ceiv­ing le­gal ad­vice. Austin ques­tioned the le­gal­i­ty of a meet­ing of four mem­bers of the Con­ca­caf ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee which is­sued the state­ment. He ad­vised that the quar­tet which com­prised Hon­duras' Al­fre­do Haw­it, Pana­ma's Ariel Al­vara­do, Mex­i­co's Justi­no Campean and Amer­i­can Sunil Gu­lati had no au­thor­i­ty to con­vene a meet­ing. "The pres­ence of four ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers in the ho­tel room of Blaz­er does not con­sti­tute an ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing," Austin said.

He quot­ed Ar­ti­cle 29 of the Con­ca­caf statutes which states: "The pres­i­dent shall pre­side over the meet­ings of the con­gress, of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, of the emer­gency com­mit­tee and of the com­mit­tees," and de­scribed the meet­ing as a bla­tant dis­re­gard for process and pro­ce­dure.

Austin said the state­ment on the Web site was not on­ly the fruit of il­le­gal ac­tions on the part of Blaz­er, but tan­ta­mount to tres­pass­ing since the unau­tho­rised use of Con­ca­caf's ser­vices and equip­ment by non-staff is un­law­ful. "In my ca­pac­i­ty as act­ing pres­i­dent, I will not or­der the im­me­di­ate shut­down of all on-line fa­cil­i­ties of the con­fed­er­a­tion due to the in­te­gral role it plays in our day to day op­er­a­tions," he said. He said it was sad that Blaz­er was us­ing the on-line pub­li­ca­tions of a con­fed­er­a­tion of which he was no longer em­ployed to wage a war against the of­fice of the act­ing pres­i­dent. He said on the ad­vice of its emer­gency com­mit­tee, he had re­tained a Mi­a­mi-based firm to launch a foren­sic au­dit in­to its ac­counts for the past six years.

Austin had point­ed to four rea­sons for the dis­missal of Blaz­er:

• that Blaz­er "in­sult­ed and de­famed" the Caribbean na­tions of Con­ca­caf;

• that he con­tin­ues to em­ploy the Amer­i­can law firm aid­ing his in­ves­ti­ga­tions;

• that he failed to in­vite Austin to the Con­ca­caf cau­cus be­fore Wednes­day's FI­FA con­gress; and

• that he ap­point­ed un­elect­ed Con­ca­caf mem­bers as del­e­gates to the Fi­fa Con­gress, in­stead of el­i­gi­ble mem­bers, in­clud­ing Austin.