Indicted former FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, has promised to release documents relating to the financial transactions of Sepp Blatter.
Warner, who is the subject of an Interpol ‘international wanted person’ alert, claims he fears for his life after being named among 14 people included on the US Department of Justice’s corruption charge sheet last week.
But he has pledged to release an “avalanche” of evidence relating to FIFA’s financial transactions, including those of President Blatter, with him and the United National Congress, one of the parties in the current ruling coalition in Trinidad and Tobago.
“At the age of 73, I have no intention of allowing them to deprive me of my freedom,” Warner, who denies any wrongdoing, said in a television address.
“I reasonably fear for my life. I have decided I will no longer keep secrets for them (the government). I have compiled a comprehensive series of documents, including cheques and corroborated statements, and have placed them in different and respected hands.
“These documents detail my knowledge in the following matters: the link between FIFA, its funding and me; the links between FIFA, its funding and the United National Congress. These documents also deal with my knowledge of certain transactions at FIFA including, but not limited to, its president Sepp Blatter.
“My lawyers, at my instruction, are making contact with law enforcement authorities both inside and outside Trinidad and Tobago in regards to the statements I have made.”
Warner, who resigned from all football activity in 2011 amid bribery allegations, has a history of making grand statements after claiming “a football tsunami (of corruption allegations) that will shock” in the lead-up to the 2011 FIFA presidential elections.
He never delivered on that statement but with the net tightening on alleged FIFA corruption in the light of the evidence of Chuck Blazer, formerly a senior official with the CONCACAF confederation which represents North American, Central American and Caribbean nations, who has struck a plea bargain with the FBI, Warner insists this time there is no going back.
“Even if these approaches do not bear fruit my careful dissemination of the material there can be no reversal of the course of action I have now embarked upon. I have effectively placed matters beyond my own reach and retracting them is now impossible, there can be no turning back. I have suffered derision, indignity and ridicule and have kept my mouth shut. Even in the face of taunts I have kept quiet fearing this day might come. I will do so no more.”
