Yvonne Ba­boolal

Hours af­ter an an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day of Jack Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion as FI­FA vice pres­i­dent, the Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter said he had no re­grets what­so­ev­er about the de­ci­sion.In fact, Warn­er pledged re­newed com­mit­ment to the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of T&T, say­ing he felt "more re­vi­talised than ever to work for this coun­try."Asked by mem­bers of the me­dia if he had re­grets about re­sign­ing his post as vice pres­i­dent of the world foot­ball body which he held for 30 years, Warn­er said: "None what­so­ev­er. Don't wor­ry about me too much. I'm okay.

"My new role is in the Cab­i­net and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. My role is to look af­ter the prob­lems of the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of T&T."I al­ways said if it comes to a choice be­tween FI­FA and coun­try, I'll choose coun­try."Warn­er made the com­ment around 5.30 pm yes­ter­day while check­ing out a col­lapsed wall at the side of the Mar­si­cans Steel Or­ches­tra's pa­n­yard on the Ari­ma Old Road.He ini­tial­ly re­fused to an­swer ques­tions from the me­dia about his res­ig­na­tion, re­fer­ring jour­nal­ists to his lawyer Om Lal­la."I came here to see about this prob­lem (the col­lapsed wall). That is my ba­sic and most im­por­tant role."

On­ly when pressed, did he give in.Warn­er dis­missed de­mands for his res­ig­na­tion by Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley as un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed calls from "dy­ing politi­cians who want to get a place in the sun."He said Caribbean foot­ball would not suf­fer as a re­sult of his res­ig­na­tion and sug­gest­ed we "wait and see" who would re­place him as FI­FA vice pres­i­dent. Lal­la said FI­FA had dropped all charges against Warn­er, who was ac­cused to pay­ing bribes to del­e­gates at a Caribbean Foot­ball Union meet­ing to vote for for­mer FI­FA pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mo­hammed bin Ham­mam.

"He has been cleared," Lal­la said.He added all foot­balling ac­tiv­i­ties had been put to rest by Warn­er and he had moved on."He has come back with re­newed spir­it. There will be a lot of ac­tion on the po­lit­i­cal front now," the at­tor­ney promised.Lal­la said Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion was sep­a­rate and apart from FI­FA's de­ci­sion to vin­di­cate him.He added: "The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was an on­go­ing ex­er­cise and they have made a de­ter­mi­na­tion."They have made what we con­sid­er an ap­pro­pri­ate de­ci­sion."Lal­la said he was not sure that Warn­er con­sult­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­fore he re­signed.

About Jack Warn­er

Jack Austin Warn­er was born in Rio Claro, South Trinidad, on Jan­u­ary 26, 1943. Warn­er, his three sis­ters and two broth­ers were al­most sin­gle-hand­ed­ly brought up by their moth­er, Stel­la, a sim­ple, hard-work­ing woman with a firm be­lief in God. The young Warn­er at­tend­ed the St There­sa's Ro­man Catholic School, Rio Claro, and lat­er when his par­ents moved to Long­denville in 1953, he was trans­ferred to the pri­ma­ry school in the area.Warn­er got a schol­ar­ship from Trinidad Clay Prod­ucts to at­tend the Col­lege of St Phillip's and St James which in 1958 was changed to Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas.

He lat­er at­tend­ed the Mau­si­ca Teach­ers Train­ing Col­lege and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies where he ob­tained his de­gree in his­to­ry in 1967.He be­came the TTFA sec­re­tary in 1973 where he stayed for the next 16 years un­til he ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion in 1990.Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, Warn­er be­came the strong­man of foot­ball in the coun­try. He al­so served as pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union and spe­cial ad­vis­er to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion and was re-elect­ed as Pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF at the Con­gress in An­tigua on May 9, 2004.

In the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion Warn­er con­test­ed the elec­toral con­stituen­cy of Ch­agua­nas West. He swept the polls with a land­slide vic­to­ry.He tal­lied some 11,140 votes; with the near­est ri­val trail­ing with some 5,280.Warn­er fought the elec­tion as one of the Deputy Lead­ers of the UNC, hav­ing won that po­si­tion some two years be­fore, in the in­ter­nal elec­tions of the par­ty. He has so far, be­come one of the front­line speak­ers for the Gov­ern­ment in Par­lia­ment.

Ca­reer his­to­ry and ac­com­plish­ments

• Teacher (his­to­ry): Poly­tech­nic In­sti­tute, Port-of-Spain 1970-1993;

• elect­ed gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union in 1978;

• elect­ed pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union in 1983;

• elect­ed pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF in 1990;

• ap­point­ed spe­cial ad­vis­er to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fed­er­a­tion in 1990;

• vice pres­i­dent of FI­FA in 1997; and,

• found­ed the Pro­fes­sion­al Foot­ball League in Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1999.