Nigel Si­mon

Less than 24 hours be­fore the start of the FI­FA Con­gress in Zurich, Switzer­land, whistle­blow­er and CON­CA­CAF Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary has had his ser­vices ter­mi­nat­ed by Lisle Austin, Act­ing pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF. Austin is the se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF, a po­si­tion he has held since 1992 and was au­to­mat­i­cal­ly el­e­vat­ed to the post of act­ing pres­i­dent af­ter CON­CA­CAF boss Jack Warn­er was tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed by FI­FA Ethics Com­mit­tee on Sun­day af­ter a pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry in­to charges of bribery lev­elled against him and Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam was launched.

A Bar­ba­di­an by birth, the 74-year-old Austin as­sumed the top post once the po­si­tion be­came va­cant and will re­main act­ing un­til the next elec­tion. Austin, sent Blaz­er's dis­missal let­ter to his ho­tel in Zurich, Ho­tel Baur au Lac, just be­fore mid­night yes­ter­day (Eu­ro­pean Time) in which he out­lined four sep­a­rate rea­sons for ter­mi­nat­ing the con­tract of the Amer­i­can. It stat­ed:

1. On May 30, 2011, at the Swis­so­tel, Zurich, Switzer­land you gross­ly in­sult­ed and de­famed every mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union and CON­CA­CAF by stat­ing cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that each mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tion is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion for bribery.

2. With­out any au­tho­ri­sa­tion what­so­ev­er from the Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of CON­CA­CAF you hired the law firm Collins and Collins to con­duct an unau­tho­rised in­ves­ti­ga­tion of CON­CA­CAF and its per­son­nel and mem­bers.

3. De­lib­er­ate­ly not in­form­ing my­self as I am now for the mo­ment the Pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF, of the CON­CA­CAF cau­cus pri­or to the FI­FA Con­gress of June 1 and usurp­ing the au­thor­i­ty of the Pres­i­dent to chair all meet­ings of CON­CA­CAF in­clud­ing the cau­cus.

4. Im­prop­er­ly ap­point­ing five non-elect­ed mem­bers of Con­ca­caf to act as del­e­gates to the FI­FA Con­gress of June 1 rather than el­i­gi­ble mem­bers in­clud­ing my­self, the act­ing Pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF. Austin ex­plained that Blaz­er's con­duct was in­ex­cus­able and gross mis­con­duct of du­ty and of judge­ment while it was al­so ap­par­ent that he (Blaz­er) no longer was fit to act as CON­CA­CAF's Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and to rep­re­sent its mem­bers.

Blaz­er was then asked to ap­pear at the of­fices of CON­CA­CAF on Mon­day at 10 am at which time he will be asked to re­turn all CON­CA­CAF ma­te­ri­als in his pos­ses­sion in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to all com­put­ers, lap­tops, fax­es and equip­ment of any type or na­ture as well as all fi­nan­cial records, con­tacts and oth­er books and records an all oth­er ma­te­r­i­al be­long­ing to or de­vel­oped for CON­CA­CAF.

Up un­til yes­ter­day, the 66-year-old Blaz­er had been a mem­ber of Con­ca­caf since 1966 and al­so an ex­ec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent of the US Soc­cer Fed­er­a­tion (USSF). FI­FA pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Jerome Val­cke were al­so in­formed of the de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate Blaz­er's tenure. Fol­low­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of Blaz­er's role, Austin said it was a dawn of a new era in CON­CA­CAF and the Con­fed­er­a­tion could not af­ford to be fur­ther dragged through the mud by its de­trac­tors.

He added that it was time to heal the wounds in­flict­ed up­on the Con­fed­er­a­tion and urged his mem­ber­ship to re­build and strength­en friend­ships that once had made them one. The lat­est twist to the on-go­ing FI­FA bribery al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Warn­er comes mere hours af­ter the he was re­port­ed again by Blaz­er to FI­FA, this time for al­leged­ly breach­ing the terms of his ban.