FI­FA has con­firmed that Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er will be used as a wit­ness in its bribery in­ves­ti­ga­tions, de­spite his res­ig­na­tion from the or­gan­i­sa­tion.The 68-year-old, how­ev­er, has in­sist­ed that he would not par­take in any meet­ings with for­mer FBI di­rec­tor Louis Freeh, who has been cho­sen to in­ves­ti­gate the bribery al­le­ga­tions sur­round­ing world foot­ball's gov­ern­ing body.De­spite Swiss law stat­ing that no ac­tion could be tak­en against peo­ple not in the or­gan­i­sa­tion, Warn­er would still be able to put ev­i­dence for­ward against oth­ers, af­ter choos­ing to leave on his own ac­cord.Unit­ed States me­dia re­port­ed yes­ter­day that Warn­er said he would "die first" be­fore help­ing Freeh in­ves­ti­gate the bribery claims.FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee ap­point­ed Freeh's agency to look in­to claims against Warn­er and an­oth­er high-rank­ing Fi­fa of­fi­cial, Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam.Warn­er said he would as­sist Fi­fa, but not Freeh be­cause of his US links."I will die first...Not me," he said.

"If FI­FA wants me to co-op­er­ate, I will do that, but not with Freeh."I'm not go­ing to back a com­plaint made by an Amer­i­can and in­ves­ti­gat­ed by Amer­i­cans and an at­tempt to put it on Amer­i­can soil be­cause the com­plaint is from Mi­a­mi...I don't back this farce."Warn­er and bin Ham­mam were sus­pend­ed af­ter ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Chuck Blaz­er, an Amer­i­can, al­leged that vi­o­la­tions of FI­FA's code of ethics oc­curred dur­ing a meet­ing or­gan­ised by the two men in May.

Warn­er and bin Ham­mam were ac­cused of giv­ing or of­fer­ing bribes of US$40,000 to Caribbean foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tions. They both de­nied any wrong­do­ing but were sus­pend­ed on May 29, pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Ethics Com­mit­tee.Af­ter Warn­er quit on Mon­day, FI­FA re­leased a state­ment which stat­ed that "as a con­se­quence of Mr Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion, all Ethics Com­mit­tee pro­ce­dures against him have been closed and the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence is main­tained."

In his res­ig­na­tion state­ment, Warn­er said: "I am con­vinced, and I am ad­vised by coun­sel, that since my ac­tions did not ex­tend be­yond fa­cil­i­tat­ing the meet­ing that gave Mr bin Ham­mam an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue his abort­ed bid for the Fi­fa pres­i­den­cy, I would be ful­ly ex­on­er­at­ed by any ob­jec­tive ar­biter."Still fac­ing a full Ethics Com­mit­tee in­quiry are two CFU staffers, who al­leged­ly helped hand out the brown en­velopes stuffed with $40,000 in $100 notes to Caribbean of­fi­cials who sat through the Qatari of­fi­cial's elec­tion pitch in Port- of- Spain on May 10.For­mer Eng­lish FA chair­man Lord Tries­man brand­ed Fi­fa's de­ci­sion to drop its probe "as­ton­ish­ing."

He said: "The whole thing il­lus­trates that at Fi­fa, even in the 21st cen­tu­ry, some­body can say, 'I'm re­sign­ing' and be al­lowed to sim­ply go, with no fur­ther ac­tion," he said."That is an as­ton­ish­ing state of af­fairs...It is right to pre­sume in­no­cence un­til af­ter a hear­ing has tak­en place but this just shows Fi­fa is sim­ply not will­ing to clean up its act."Last month, Lord Tries­man claimed Warn­er asked for cash to build an ed­u­ca­tion cen­tre in Trinidad. He al­so claimed Warn­er de­mand­ed 500,000 pounds ster­ling to buy Haiti's World Cup TV rights for the earth­quake-hit na­tion.Warn­er de­nied both al­le­ga­tions and an in­de­pen­dent re­port com­mis­sioned by the FA lat­er cleared him of any wrong­do­ing.