2018: England in the iron grip of Jack Warner

This speech was given as the closing speech at Play the Game 2009 in Coventry by award winning investigative reporter, writer and documentary filmmaker, Andrew Jennings.

2018: England in the iron grip of Jack Warner

You’ve heard of the Premier League, you’ve heard of the Champions League but today - I want to talk about the World Domination League.There’s only 24 members but Governments tremble before them.  Football officials quiver.The English FA hurls itself to the ground and licks boots.Yes, it must be bidding time again for the World Cup. And England is bidding.

Some of the members of the World Domination League – aka FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee - are mad, some are bad, but one member is both – Meet Trinidad’s FIFA vice-president Jack Warner.This is how he saw himself a few years ago in a paid-for biography scribbled by a Trinidad sports reporter. [Jennings shows a photograph, ed.]In 41 years of investigating everything from the mafia in Palermo, drugs smugglers in Beirut, armed robbers and crooks at Scotland Yard - I’ve come across some wicked people. Although there is no evidence yet that Warner has murdered anybody - I find him the most morally bankrupt and corrupt man I’ve ever encountered.

In June 2002 I’ll guess that most of you were either in Korea for the beginning of the World Cup – or watching it on TV. Jack Warner was doing neither.He should have been in the best VIP seats. But he wasn’t. At FIFA’s expense he and his entourage had fled Korea all the way back to Trinidad. One of his associates had been arrested on corruption charges.Here’s Warner outside the jail in Port of Spain trying to raise bail money to spring his friend. [Jennings shows a photograph, ed.]Some people think that inside a jail is a better place for Warner.

The footballers of Trinidad and Tobago – you met their splendid goalkeeper Shaka Hislop at our last PTG conference in Iceland two years ago – played themselves brilliantly into the finals of the World Cup in Germany.Warner had his phoney biography updated and grabbed the credit for the 2006 qualification. That’s not all he grabbed.Unbelievably, he still refuses to pay Shaka and the rest of the Trinidad squad around £20 million owing to them from sponsors and TV sales. Warner steals from footballers, several of whom play in England. But the English FA would not dream of speaking up for their rights. Warner wouldn’t like it. When it comes to the vote on who is to host the 2018 World Cup, Warner has an iron grip on 3 of the crucial votes at the World Domination League. There’s his vote - plus those of his bag carriers Chuck Blazer from New York and the almost invisible Rafael Salguero from Guatemala.The eventual winner only needs 12 votes – depending on who might take a bribe to abstain – so Warner controls 25% of the votes England seeks. Now here’s a document that’s never been seen in daylight before today. [Jennings shows a document, ed.] Warner operates on the Dark Side and when he sent this fax to the then English FA boss Geoff Thompson in 2002 it was quickly buried beneath a tombstone in the Association’s basement.It begins ‘My dear President and Friend’ and coming from Warner, that’s enough to send a chill down the spine. It gets worse. The heading is, ‘Proposal to change FIFA’s statutes.’ It was Warner at his slimy nastiest, threatening to strip Britain of its guaranteed vice-presidency seat on FIFA’s executive committee. Geoff Thompson compliant as ever, had his lips stitched up and his tongue cut out - and now he is the silent sleep-walker sitting in that precious seat.Warner knows how to keep the Brits on toast, Two years ago he threatened again, ‘If I can get support I will fight to have it abolished.’Warner controls 35 out of 208 votes at FIFA; one wrong word and the Brits could be relegated to the outer darknesses of FIFA with less clout than Anguilla.

So since 2002 the English FA has been blind and speechless about the horrors of Warner’s flagrant corruption. But they know how to jump to attention when Warner snaps his fingers.In June last year the T&T federation celebrated its centenary. A perfect opportunity for the Warner family to steal fistfuls of cash from the fans.The English FA were invited – an invitation they dare not refuse if they had any hopes of Warner’s votes for 2018 – to send our national team to play Warner’s team. So our players, weary after a tough season, had to postpone their vacations to make money for Warner.So craven was the English FA that they even allowed the rapacious Warners to place an advert on the English fans website. They wanted £70 a head for a party.The English fans – unlike the FA – aren’t scared to speak the truth about the Warners. The blogging began. ‘Does the price include the barmaid?’ queried one fan. ‘Can I drink £70 worth of alcohol in five hours,’ wondered another. Then there was, ‘Bargain - I was a bit worried that we might get turned over when we got there.’ The FA hurriedly erased the £70 price tag.England, with stars like David Beckham visiting the Caribbean, was of course a huge draw. Warner jacked up the ticket prices and when he announced they were sold out - we all knew what would happen on match day.One England fan from a nearby island emailed me that when he asked on the street for tickets, he was directed to a shop where hundreds were for sale – cash only, off the books. The shop was run by Warner’s son Daryan. Here they are.Although Warner’s tickets rackets are legendary, none of the English reporters who went to Trinidad bothered to go looking for scams. Instead they followed their masters’ lead and wrote nice things about Warner. They seem unaware – or don’t care – that the England fans know well that when it comes to overpriced tickets being sold by touts and travel agents – they had to have come down a dark alleyway from the backdoor of FIFA.The first recorded ticket rackets by Warner go back to 1989 when the USA visited Trinidad for a crucial World Cup qualifying match. The stadium would only hold 29,000 fans – but Warner printed and sold 45,000 tickets. He got away with that.There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence that the Warner family have been involved in industrial-scale tickets rackets ever since.But the first detailed evidence began to emerge in early 2006 and I went to Trinidad with a BBC film crew to try and ask him about it. I caught up with Warner as he was about to speak at a political meeting – one of his fantasies is that he will become Trinidad’s prime minister.(Movie CLIP 1)Warner had refused an interview  - and incensed – he began his speech with a racist attack on me.Look in the middle column, 2nd paragraph – he howled, ‘No foreigner, particularly a white foreigner will come to my country and harass me.’A few days later I encountered Warner at the airport and tried again.

(Movie CLIP 2 – Warner at airport)After the World Cup in Germany a source gave me a top secret report by FIFA ticket auditors Ernst & Young revealing that the Warners had acquired – and sold – more than 5,000 tickets obtained from FIFA’s ticket agents.My story was published over 2 pages in the London Daily Mail.A week later Warner was due in Zurich to be quizzed about his ticket rackets. I tried once more.(MOVIE CLIP 3 – Warner at Zurich airport)No surprise what was announced later that day.FIFA said that Daryan Warner and their family-owned Simpaul travel firm that they had laundered the tickets through had been told not to do it again – but Daddy Warner was innocent because he knew nothing.Later I discovered that secretly FIFA had fined Simpaul Travel 750,000 Euros. In this extract from a confidential document FIFA said it was:‘to compensate for the profits it made through the resale of 2006 World Cup tickets.’FIFA refuse to tell me if the 566,000 Euros still owing a year later have been repaid yet.This insider trading breaches the FIFA Code of Ethics – but nobody, including the English FA – have the guts to report the Warners. Jack Warner should be expelled for his actions.Maybe the English know that - as Blatter would protect Warner from punishment - they could be sacrificing 3 votes – and maybe more. So much for English sports morality – and standing up for the general good of the game.When Jack Warner isn’t touting World Cup tickets by the tonne, he’s selling lucrative TV rights to the same games. FIFA quietly slips them to him for dimes and he sells them for millions of dollars. He appears to be guilty of multiple breaches of FIFA’s Ethics rules. I wrote about it 3 years ago. But nobody at FIFA can read!It’s one of FIFA’s longest-running scandals. A FIFA vice-president (itals) owning television rights to the FIFA World Cup? It’s insider dealing, a shameless conflict of interest – Warner is supposed to serve football’s best interests, not his own.

Warner first laid his hands on this pot of gold – the rights for the Caribbean region - at the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Former FIFA president Joao Havelange gave them to Warner for a nominal one dollar!This sweetheart deal ran again in 1994 and 1998 and was finally revealed in a confidential report produced by General Secretary Michael Zen-Ruffinen on the eve of the 2002 Cup. Zen-Ruffinen was fired soon after.One of Warner’s positions is President of the Caribbean Football Union. In December 2001 the CFU (proprietor FIFA vice-president J. Warner) paid $4,250,000 to JD International (proprietor FIFA vice-president J. Warner) for the rights to 2002 and 2006. Trinidad football official Harold Taylor (employer, FIFA vice-president J. Warner) signed on behalf of the CFU. Two more World Cups loom – and little changes.  The Caribbean rights for the next two World Cups in 2010 and 2014 have been sold directly by FIFA (proprietor FIFA President S. Blatter) to the CFU (proprietor FIFA vice-president J. Warner).They are being sold on by JD International (proprietor FIFA vice-president J. Warner)In February 2007 these rights – permitting screening in 29 countries - were purchased by a Caribbean-registered company for around US$20 million. There’s Warner shaking on the deal.Warner has confidential meetings with Blatter to discuss him holding on to these rights. The FIFA Executive Committee has to approve every TV rights contract. So all 24 members of the World Domination League are complicit.Let’s look at what FIFA’s Code of Ethics says about all this:

Article 3 says that ‘Officials may not abuse their position . . . especially to take advantage of their function for private aims or gains.’ How would Mr Warner answer that?Article 8 calls for disclosure of personal interests. But it isn’t made public so there’s little point. It also states that officials should ‘avoid conflicts of interest.’ Can Mr Warner show us the books of JD International? That would also meet the needs of Article 13 which insists that ‘Officials are forbidden from accepting commission for negotiating deals of any kind.’

Back in England – following endless scandals a new, independent chairman was appointed to head the FA.The reason Lord Triesman looks happy may be because the former comrade Dave Triesman is now pulling down a vast salary at the FA . . . plus another £100,000 a year leading the England bid for 2018.Comrade Dave was a student agitator in the 1960s and joined the Communist party in the 1970s. In the 1980s he became a paid trade union official and 2001 was promoted to General Secretary of our ruling Labour Party. Three years later Comrade Dave became a Peer of the Realm – a member of the House of Lords.In 2006 FIFA signed a recognition agreement with FIFPro, the International Federation of Professional Football Players and most leading football nations followed suit with their national players association. But not Jack Warner. He sneers at the Trinidad players association.With his trade union background you’d think Lord Comrade Dave would speak out for the rights of players.I asked the FA press office if Lord Comrade Dave would be urging Warner to comply with FIFA policy. ‘This is not the business of the FA’ replied a mouthpiece in a blazer.The English are now so craven they even kiss ass with Warner’s gang members.[Jennings shows a photograph, ed.] The fat man on the left is Captain Horace Burrell, president of the Jamaican Football Federation. Behind him is Jane Bateman, longtime director of International Relations for the FA and now a key member of the 2018 bidding team. Front right is the FA’s Simon Johnson and behind him Peter Hargitay, the dirty tricks spin doctor who works for Jack Warner and several other scummy members of the World Domination League.This page is from the report of the FIFA Congress of 1998. [Jennings presents a document, ed.] I’ve picked out the name of Ms Vincy Jalal who represented and voted for Haiti. But she’s not from Haiti. She’s from Jamaica and she’s the longterm girlfriend of Horace Burrell. When the Haitian delegate didn’t turn up, Warner and Burrell slipped her in, completely breaking FIFA’s rules. This immoral behaviour might explain why FIFA is happy to have Cp’n Burrell as a member of their Disciplinary Committee.

This all so sordid - Let’s round off with a laugh. FIFA’s joke Ethics Committee is promising that it will enforce ‘high ethical standards’ in the bidding for 2018. They are prohibiting ‘any attempt to influence the FIFA Executive Committee or any FIFA official.’That’s odd – I thought it was the other way round, FIFA officials selling their votes, just like the good old days at the IOC.More realistic - and more honest - was the statement in 2004 from a South African government minister. ‘If we have to choose between corrupting people and losing, let’s just lose,’ said Essop Pahad. ‘We’re not going to give any money to anyone under the table.’So why did South Africa win? A lot of bribes were paid by other countries – but Blatter needed them to win for his own political reasons. So he let the boys play and then they did as they were told.Will Comrade Lord Dave be making a public statement ruling out bribes to get 2018? Jack Warner would be offended. Batter would pretend to be shocked. So we English dare not speak the moral words.Warner has been the person of interest today. But let’s not forget the splendid presentation by Kay Thomas on Tuesday afternoon about Nigeria’s Amos Adamu. The English FA is getting ready to kiss his ass. They’ll adopt the same posture with Paraguay’s bribe-taking Nicolas Leoz and Brazil’s corrupt Ricardo Teixeira.A final thought . . . if any of you happen to bump into President Blatter – do ask him, ‘how’s Charlie these days?’Who is Charlie? Here’s a clue: These days he lives rent free at The Hague.

There’s no handle on the inside of his room door.Yes, it’s Liberia’s Charles Taylor, serial murderer and human rights abuser, currently on trial in Holland. Back in 1999 Blatter wanted Liberia’s vote for his next presidential election. These are just some of the issues that the English FA won’t be raising when we get the official visits from the World Domination League to scrutinise our bid for 2018.Thank you.

 Watch Andrew Jennings' presentation here:

Closing speeches and presentation by Andrew Jennings from Play the Game on Vimeo.