Kantac Plaza, one of the properties under the ownership of former FIFA vice president Austin Jack Warner, has been listed for sale.
The asking price is $8.5 million.
However, Warner was tight-lipped as to why he has opted to sell the property he has owned for over 20 years.
The building located along the Eastern Main Road in Arouca has served as the base of operations for the Sunshine Newspaper since it was launched in May 2013, as well as an office which Warner occupied.
Warner had utilised that office significantly in recent years, particularly in the build-up to the 2020 General Election when he was the sole candidate for the Independent Liberal Party in the polls.
Warner had formed the ILP in July 2013, after he had resigned in April of that year after an ethics panel from the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Football (CONCACAF) accused him of fraudulently managing the regional football body.
In the fallout, he formed the party to contest the 2013 by-election for the Chaguanas West seat after he had been forced to resign as Member of Parliament for the area as well as Minister of National Security.
He won the subsequent by-election and served as an opposition member until the 2015 election, where he once again contested the polls as part of 26 candidates the ILP presented for the polls.
The party was unsuccessful in their campaign, failing to win any seat in the election. After Warner failed to win the Lopinot/Bon Air West seat in the 2020 election, the former FIFA executive reportedly retired from politics.
The Business Guardian learnt that the Sunshine Newspaper recently moved to the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence in Macoya.
On the Sunshine social media page, the newspaper’s address has been listed as 17A Macoya Road, the same address of the Macoya facility.
The Business Guardian reached out to Warner for further details concerning the sale of Kantac Plaza.
While he did confirm that he had consolidated his offices by moving them to the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, he was not forthcoming concerning the reason behind the sale of the Arouca property.
He said, “I have no intention to answer any such questions,” when he was asked about his reasons for the sale and his future plans.
Questions were also posed to Donna Jennings, whose name and contact was placed on the announcement of the sale of Kantac Plaza.
Jennings, who contested the 2015 elections as part of the ILP’s slate, confirmed that the building is being sold for $8.5 million.
The decision to move to the Centre of Excellence is notable, as while Warner’s ownership of Kantac Plaza is well-known, the ownership of the Macoya facility has been subject to a long-running legal dispute with Concacaf.
The Centre of Excellence was established in 1998, but the facility’s ownership had come into question since Warner’s departure from the role of FIFA Vice-President and Concacaf President in 2011, following bribery allegations levelled against Warner.
Issues concerning the ownership of the lucrative property, which features a swimming complex, restaurants, a 44-room hotel, conference facilities, a gym and the Marvin Lee Stadium, were raised when Warner’s successor at Concacaf, Jeffrey Webb instituted an integrity investigation against him and fellow former president Chuck Blazer in 2012.
In that very year, former FIFA President Sepp Blatter had also vowed to recover FIFA’s ownership of the property.
That investigation came three years before Warner and Blazer and other FIFA officials, including Blatter and Webb, were implicated in a United States Department of Justice investigation into corruption in the operations of world football’s governing body in 2015.
Warner’s decision to move offices has come just over a month since CONCACAF won a significant legal victory over Warner concerning the ownership of the property.
On December 5, High Court Judge Robin Mohammed dismissed an application from two companies owned by Warner’s family and his wife Maureen to remove them from the US$37.8 million lawsuit by the regional football body which was brought against them, Warner’s accountant Kenny Rampersad and Rampersad’s accounting firm.
In that application, Warner’s wife and the companies, Renraw Investments Ltd and CCAM and Company Ltd were claiming that the case, filed in 2016, was statute barred as it concerned conduct which took place between 1995 and 2011.
Warner and his team also submitted that while CONCACAF could claim that Warner had a fiduciary duty to it based on his long stint at the helm of the organisation, they had no connection.
In the lawsuit, CONCACAF has argued that Warner, his wife and the companies were involved in a conspiracy to misappropriate CONCACAF funds which were allocated to construct the facility by misrepresenting that the Centre of Excellence was actually owned by CONCACAF.
CONCACAF also listed Rampersad and his company as parties to the claim as it contended that he had a conflict of interest by serving as the accountant for both CONCACAF and the companies.
In defence of the claim, Warner claimed that he could not recall facts surrounding the deal due to CONCACAF’s delay in bringing the claim.
He also denied that he and his wife had a controlling interest in the companies and that he misappropriated funds.
Warner’s wife has also contended that she was never involved in the financing of the project.
Rampersad similarly denied any wrongdoing as he contended that he provided secretarial services to the companies and claimed that he did not owe Concacaf any fiduciary duty as he merely served as an auditor.
A case management conference in the matter is set to be heard today February 2.
That was not the only significant court ruling which went against Warner recently, as a few weeks before the high court ruling on November 17 2022, the Privy Council ruled that the former FIFA vice-president can be extradited from his homeland of T&T to the United States, to face corruption charges.
That ruling cleared the way for Warner’s extradition matter to be heard in the Magistrates Court. That matter is still pending, but Warner immediately after the November ruling that he had confidence in his legal team and would be successful at the end of the case.