ZURICH–Four years af­ter step­ping down in dis­grace, for­mer FI­FA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er was banned from soc­cer for life yes­ter­day, ac­cused of re­peat­ed acts of bribery re­lat­ed to World Cup bid­ding votes.

Warn­er, a long-time al­ly of pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter who was al­lowed to re­sign from FI­FA in 2011 with his "pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence" main­tained, is cur­rent­ly fight­ing ex­tra­di­tion from T&T on US charges of rack­e­teer­ing, wire fraud and mon­ey-laun­der­ing.

How­ev­er, Warn­er re­mained de­fi­ant in the face of the move by FI­FA, say­ing the ac­tion was a mere smoke screen de­signed to di­vert sus­pi­cion away from Blat­ter him­self.

"I left the FI­FA in April 2011 and if in Sep­tem­ber 2015 (some four years and five months af­ter) the FI­FA wants to ban me for life with­out even a hear­ing then so be it," Warn­er said in state­ment yes­ter­day.

"I do not be­lieve how­ev­er that this will serve as the dis­trac­tion to the FI­FA's present prob­lems as the FI­FA wish­es it to be. Giv­en what is hap­pen­ing in Zurich with Sepp Blat­ter I guess that there is no such thing as a co­in­ci­dence."

The de­ci­sion by the FI­FA ethics com­mit­tee yes­ter­day showed that judge Hans-Joachim Eck­ert will pur­sue of­fi­cials long af­ter they have left their jobs.

A more press­ing case for the ethics body is an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Blat­ter, who was in­ter­ro­gat­ed by Swiss pros­e­cu­tors last Fri­day in part over al­le­ga­tions he un­der­val­ued the award­ing of World Cup tele­vi­sion rights to Warn­er.

Blat­ter, who de­nies wrong­do­ing, is al­so at risk of be­ing sus­pend­ed by his own or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Warn­er's life­time FI­FA ban stems from Eck­ert's re­port on the bid­ding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

As leader of the CON­CA­CAF re­gion from 1990-2011, Warn­er gained con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence in World Cup votes by the FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee and now the ex­tent of his wrong­do­ing has been re­in­forced by Eck­ert.

"Mr Warn­er was found to have com­mit­ted many and var­i­ous acts of mis­con­duct con­tin­u­ous­ly and re­peat­ed­ly dur­ing his time as an of­fi­cial in dif­fer­ent high-rank­ing and in­flu­en­tial po­si­tions at FI­FA and CON­CA­CAF.

"In his po­si­tions as a foot­ball of­fi­cial, he was a key play­er in schemes in­volv­ing the of­fer, ac­cep­tance and re­ceipt of undis­closed and il­le­gal pay­ments, as well as oth­er mon­ey-mak­ing schemes," the FI­FA state­ment said.

The case high­lights how the specter of cor­rup­tion has hung over FI­FA un­der Blat­ter's 17-year pres­i­den­cy. (AP)