Doc­u­ments ob­tained by the T&T Guardian have shed new light on the own­er­ship of the Joao Have­lange Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar foot­ball fa­cil­i­ty at Ma­coya. They show that the cen­tre, built on just over sev­en acres of land, is joint­ly owned by two com­pa­nies-CCAM and Co Ltd and Ren­raw In­vest­ments Ltd.

Ren­raw is "Warn­er" spelt back­wards. The com­pa­ny's an­nu­al re­turn for 2011 lists Warn­er, his wife, Mau­reen and son Daryan as di­rec­tors of Ren­raw Ltd. Warn­er and Ren­raw al­so took out mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar mort­gages on the cen­tre. The Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence is the sub­ject of a le­gal bat­tle be­tween FI­FA, the world gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball, and Warn­er, who is a for­mer pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf and the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) and a vice-pres­i­dent of FI­FA.

FI­FA said last month it plans to take le­gal steps to re­cov­er the own­er­ship of the cen­tre, said to be worth US$25.5 mil­lion, which FI­FA says it fund­ed. FI­FA said the cen­tre was signed over to Warn­er's fam­i­ly firms. Warn­er, how­ev­er, has said it be­longs to the CFU.

Warn­er re­signed as an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of FI­FA last year dur­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the brib­ing of CFU of­fi­cials at a meet­ing held in Port-of-Spain with Mo­hammed bin Ham­mam, a Qatari foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tor who had said he planned to run for elec­tion as FI­FA pres­i­dent. In Ju­ly 2011, FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee banned bin Ham­mam from foot­ball-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties for life.

The T&T Guardian has ob­tained a copy of a reg­is­tered mort­gage doc­u­ment, dat­ed Ju­ly 2007, that shows Warn­er was one of the bor­row­ers. His fam­i­ly firm Ren­raw In­vest­ments Ltd is al­so list­ed, and Warn­er signed the state­ment as a di­rec­tor of Ren­raw. The prop­er­ty was mort­gaged three times ac­cord­ing to the of­fi­cial doc­u­ments, first­ly on Au­gust 10, 1998, for $2 mil­lion, then on Sep­tem­ber 18 for US$475,000 and third­ly, in 2007 for $11 mil­lion.

Warn­er signed the first and third mort­gages. Warn­er could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day. He is in To­ba­go with his Cab­i­net col­leagues for a Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment re­treat and did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone.

About the cen­tre

The land on which the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence stands was first owned by West In­di­an Oil In­dus­tries Ltd, then ac­quired by Lever Broth­ers in 1963. It was trans­ferred to Ren­raw In­vest­ments Ltd in March 1996. The cen­tre was named af­ter for­mer pres­i­dent of the world body Dr Joao Have­lange of Brazil and was opened in 1998.

The cen­tre in­cludes a swim­ming pool, a "gar­den sanc­tu­ary," a fit­ness cen­tre, a ho­tel, an 800-ca­pac­i­ty the­atre, a ban­quet and re­cep­tion hall, and sev­er­al oth­er meet­ing halls. The Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um is al­so part of the cen­tre.

State­ment of charge

The state­ment of charge, a doc­u­ment re­lat­ed to a mort­gage ap­pli­ca­tion, dat­ed June 25, 2007, un­der Sec­tion 251 of the Com­pa­nies Act, 1995 states: "Mem­o­ran­dum of Mort­gage dat­ed the 4th of June two thou­sand and sev­en made by CCAM and Com­pa­ny Ltd and Ren­raw In­vest­ments Ltd (Mort­gagors) the said CCAM and Com­pa­ny Ltd, Ren­raw In­vest­ments Ltd, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball (CON­CA­CAF) CCAM and Com­pa­ny Ltd, Jack Austin Warn­er and the Dr Joao Have­lange Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence (the bor­row­ers) in favour of First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd."