Gail Alexan­der

Hours ahead of to­day's con­tro­ver­sial FI­FA elec­tion, sus­pend­ed vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er has changed tack, sup­port­ing in­cum­bent FI­FA jefe Sepp Blat­ter to head the foot­ball body-the same day FI­FA's Caribbean di­vi­sion fired Chuck Blaz­er who had lev­elled bribery al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er.This, as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed sup­port for the em­bat­tled Warn­er.A trail of 11th-hour de­vel­op­ments arose yes­ter­day ahead of FI­FA's elec­tion, tak­ing place this morn­ing in Zurich where the in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball body has been fend­ing off cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions in the last week. Warn­er has been at the cen­tre of the firestorm of bribery al­le­ga­tions which arose af­ter CON­CA­CAF gen­er­al sec­re­tary Blaz­er point­ed the fin­ger at him. Warn­er and FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam were sus­pend­ed, pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion by FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee that they arranged for US$1 mil­lion in bribes to be of­fered to 25 Caribbean as­so­ci­a­tions at a spe­cial meet­ing in Trinidad ear­ly last month.Bin Ham­mam, of Qatar, had been con­test­ing the post of FI­FA pres­i­dent against Blat­ter. He dropped out on Sun­day, leav­ing Blat­ter as the on­ly can­di­date.Eu­ro­pean and African mem­ber states have urged post­pone­ment of the elec­tions be­cause of the con­tro­ver­sy.

On Mon­day, Warn­er had said that "at the end of the day, Blat­ter has to be stopped." He threat­ened to un­leash a "tsuna­mi" on the foot­ball world.That day al­so, new CON­CA­CAF head Lisle Austin-who re­placed the sus­pend­ed Warn­er-called on Blaz­er to say with­in 48 hours what au­thor­i­ty he had to probe al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct by CON­CA­CAF mem­bers. Yes­ter­day, Austin wrote Blaz­er in­form­ing him of his ter­mi­na­tion.He said Blaz­er has "gross­ly in­sult­ed and de­famed" every Caribbean mem­ber of CON­CA­CAF by stat­ing that each mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tion was un­der probe for bribery.Austin said Blaz­er hired the law firm of Collins & Collins to con­duct an "unau­tho­rised in­ves­ti­ga­tion" of CON­CA­CAF, per­son­nel and mem­bers.Austin said Blaz­er did not in­form him and had al­so "usurped" the pres­i­dent's au­thor­i­ty to chair CON­CA­CAF meet­ings. He said Blaz­er im­prop­er­ly ap­point­ed non-elect­ed mem­bers to act as del­e­gates for to­day's elec­tion.La­belling Blaz­er's con­duct "in­ex­cus­able" and "gross mis­con­duct," Austin said Blaz­er was no longer "fit to act" as CON­CA­CAF sec­re­tary gen­er­al. Blaz­er has to turn over all CON­CA­CAF ma­te­ri­als, in­clud­ing records next Mon­day.

On Mon­day, Blaz­er said his re­la­tion­ship with Warn­er was "bro­ken." How­ev­er, an e-mailed state­ment is­sued by CON­CA­CAF's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee last night, with a New York date­line, claimed Austin made an unau­tho­rised de­c­la­ra­tion in at­tempt­ing to re­move Blaz­er.The state­ment read: "This at­tempt­ed ac­tion was tak­en with­out any au­thor­i­ty. Un­der the CON­CA­CAF statutes, ju­ris­dic­tion over the gen­er­al sec­re­tary rests sole­ly with the CON­CA­CAF ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee which has tak­en no ac­tion."A ma­jor­i­ty of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers have ad­vised Mr Austin that he does not have the au­thor­i­ty to take such ac­tion. Blaz­er con­tin­ues as CON­CA­CAF gen­er­al sec­re­tary, with the full au­thor­i­ty of his of­fice."As Blaz­er was be­ing fired, Warn­er yes­ter­day wrote mem­bers of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) ask­ing them to de­sist from protest ac­tion at to­day's FI­FA elec­tion and urg­ing sup­port for Blat­ter.This, af­ter Warn­er's state­ments on Mon­day say­ing Blat­ter had to be stopped.Warn­er told CFU mem­bers yes­ter­day: "At our last meet­ing, we agreed as a union to sup­port the in­cum­bent Joseph Sepp Blat­ter in his quest to re­gain the pres­i­den­cy. I wish to as­sure you noth­ing has changed-our man­date was set then and de­spite it all we must ful­fill it."Warn­ing CFU mem­bers against di­vi­sion, Warn­er ac­knowl­edged that many of them were hurt­ing over his sus­pen­sion.He said: "It is on­ly hu­man na­ture you would want to demon­strate your anger but de­spite all we must not fu­el a fire set by oth­ers to in­cin­er­ate all that we strive for."He did not re­spond to calls on the rea­son for his about-face.Warn­er re­turns home to­mor­row.

Mean­while, a UK Guardian re­port not­ed that bin Ham­mam de­fend­ed him­self on the bribery al­le­ga­tions, say­ing the mon­ey in­volved in the al­leged is­sue was for ex­pens­es re­lat­ed to the CFU's May 10-11 meet­ing in Port-of-Spain. The re­port states:"Since this was an ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing of the CFU, Mr bin Ham­mam found it cor­rect and in­sist­ed to pay the trav­el­ling and ac­com­mo­da­tion ex­pens­es of the del­e­gates, as well as the over­all costs of the con­fer­ence."For this pur­pose, Mr bin Ham­mam trans­ferred the es­ti­mat­ed costs of US$360,000 to the CFU, pri­or to the meet­ing in Trinidad."The Warn­er is­sue fig­ured in (and out) of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day from the Op­po­si­tion's di­rec­tion with PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds call­ing for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to probe bribery al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er.Hinds not­ed that it was a crime in T&T to of­fer a bribe.Hinds al­so called for the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms to probe al­le­ga­tions how (US) cur­ren­cy was im­port­ed in­to T&T on the is­sue.Hinds said the sit­u­a­tion al­so war­rant­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau and Fraud Squad.PNM's new "re­birth" group which has sup­port­ed for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's democ­ra­cy walk, al­so said Warn­er's be­hav­iour con­tin­ued to dam­age T&T's rep­u­ta­tion.Group PRO Joel Primus said: "FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee has de­ter­mined that a pri­ma fa­cie case has been made against Warn­er and a de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion, com­mis­sioned. Un­der these cir­cum­stances, the Prime Min­is­ter can­not adopt a wait-and-see at­ti­tude." Con­demn­ing Gov­ern­ment for "dou­ble stan­dards," the group stat­ed:"If Mary King could be fired pend­ing the re­sults of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, so must Jack Warn­er. This must be re­ferred to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion as the al­leged cor­rupt acts ap­pear to have oc­curred in T&T."The Prime Min­is­ter's fail­ure to act in this would be an ad­mis­sion of naked hypocrisy, giv­en her sanc­ti­mo­nious stance against pub­lic of­fi­cials dur­ing the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion who have yet to be charged for any­thing."If the Prime Min­is­ter does not take im­me­di­ate, de­ci­sive ac­tion in this mat­ter, we call on her to dis­solve Par­lia­ment forth­with."