A very lucky Jack: Part VII of a Special Investigation

 Not only does he get cash gifts of $60 million from party financiers, he gets debt forgiveness on a US$6 million Centre of Excellence (CoE) construction loan; another US$20 million worth of investments in the CoE from the world football governing body, FIFA; maintenance money for his CoE acquisition of US$50,000 a month from Concacaf, the body which represents football federations from North and Central America and the Caribbean of which he was president; and miscellaneous cash gifts from Australia and other countries bidding to secure lucrative and prestigious World Cup hosting gains.

And while United National Congress (UNC) party financier Krishna Lalla contends that the $60 million was a loan to be repaid and the Sir David Simmons-led Concacaf Integrity Committee has made findings of criminal fraud in relation to some of the big ticket CoE items, Warner has remained resolute in his claim that they were cash gifts meant for his personal benefit.

Warner has presented conflicting accounts of the circumstances surrounding these so-called CoE gifts, last Thursday pulling private correspondence he refused to share with the Simmons enquiry out of his political hat at a public meeting with adoring Chaguanas West constituents as proof that former FIFA president Joao Havelange had gifted the CoE to him and the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), of which he was president.

There are several problems with Warner’s various and conflicting accounts.

In the case of the UNC party financier, he initially branded him a liar, telling his then political leader Basdeo Panday that he never received any money from Lalla.

As reported previously in this series, Warner recanted his story when Lalla filed a lawsuit to get back his money. The new version, Warner told Panday, was that the cash gift was $30 million and not $60 million. Lalla had sued for recovery of the cheque payments only, which was about $30 million.

Another major hurdle in the Warner credibility chart is his Havelange story.

The private letters he produced as proof of a gift do not specifically match the interpretation he has placed on it. Further, legal experts counter that even if Havelange did in fact give the CoE at Macoya as a gift to Warner, he did not have the authority to give away a corporate asset.

Legal experts say Havelange cannot give away an asset that is not his to give and the absence of FIFA board minutes and other documents tell its own story about Warner’s claim of the fabulously-expensive real estate gift.

The Simmons Report also detailed a slew of fraudulent Warner dealings in relation to the CoE.

As reported in the April 17 installment of this series, Warner and his accountant-in-chief Kenny Rampersad had listed the CoE, named after Havelange, as a freehold asset on the balance sheet of the region’s ruling football body.

The Express series raised questions about the Rampersad-audited Concacaf financial statements and the apparent material misrepresentation of an asset described as freehold property to which Warner held legal title.

The Rampersad-audited accounts showed the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence as an asset on the books of Concacaf from inception in the late 90s right up to 2010. The Simmons report found that far from being an accounting oversight, it was intent to deceive.
Investigations by this newspaper show, however, that it was a deception known to Zurich.

FIFA insiders say Sepp Blatter, Warner’s former close pal and the man he fraudulently helped elect as FIFA president in a bid-rigging scheme more than a decade ago, knew about the CoE scam.

FIFA board minutes show that Blatter defended Warner’s many financial improprieties and ran interference to requests for censure from some FIFA Executive Committee (ExCo) members.

As reported in the April 17 installment, the CoE was not only listed as an asset on the books of Concacaf, it was billing the Confederation for use of its facilities. It was very clearly stated in black and white that Concacaf derived no income from its freehold property in Trinidad and instead was paying hundreds of thousands of US dollars to Warner for use of the sprawling sporting complex paid for with FIFA money.

The financial statements in which Rampersad played both a bookkeeper and auditor role, showed a one-way money flow to Warner.

And as with almost everything else in the halcyon Warner-Blatter days, no questions were asked and no explanations provided.

Warner described Blatter as a great leader. Blatter called him: “A wonderful and loyal friend”. From all accounts, it was a mutually-rewarding relationship, the two men made very rich deals and, up until early 2011, they had each other’s back.

Blatter gave a US$1 million gift to Concacaf to spend as it chose. Persons familiar with the situation say the money went to Warner. And as Warner himself would admit in the wake of the 2011 tsunami break-up between the former football allies, Blatter provided many gifts over the years, including to “all members” of the Caribbean football bodies.

He said gift giving was a part of FIFA’s culture. It was in the FIFA DNA.

In a startling statement carried in a live international broadcast on Sportsmax and local TV stations, Warner, on Thursday night, admitted his role in a 1998 vote-rigging scheme to ensure Blatter’s victory in FIFA’s presidential race.

In a public admission of fraud, Warner told how Vincy Jalal, the girlfriend of Horace Burrell, president of the Jamaica Football Federation, cast a proxy vote for Haiti and shouted “oui” during the roll-call of delegates.

He said Blatter won the FIFA presidency on the strength of his (Warner’s) vote-scheming.

Persons with knowledge of the situation told a more sinister tale of the then Haiti Football Association president, Dr Jean-Marie Kyss, being detained in Haiti on the instruction of the then Secretary of Sport at a time of political turmoil.

Kyss’ passport was seized but he got out desperate calls to Warner and former general secretary of Concacaf, Chuck Blazer, briefing them on the situation and his inability to make the scheduled Paris Congress.

And while FIFA’s rules do not permit proxy voting, Warner, a former Blatter general, told the huge meeting of party supporters on Thursday that Blatter was one of the “most hated” football officials” at the time and were it not for Concacaf’s support, he would “never have seen the light of day as FIFA president”.

He said: “With Blatter’s permission, I got Captain Burrell’s girlfriend to vote as the Haitian delegate by saying ‘oui!’ when Haiti’s name was called. In 1998 therefore, I had delivered and since then I emerged the second highest sporting personality in FIFA.”

Warner did not say whether his No. 2 standing in the Blatter-run House of FIFA was connected to the 1998 vote-rigging scheme, but he was clear that the two had much in common and a mutual admiration for each other.

His change of loyalty to a wealthy Qatari by the name of Mohamed bin Hammam created a tectonic shift on the FIFA playing field.

New alliances were formed, old friendships came undone and tsunami threats were being unleashed in the full glare of rolling TV cameras. The former football allies had come to the end game, each desperately fighting to score, each waiting to offload their own truck-load of dirty secrets.

—In Wednesday’s Express, some of those secrets are revealed.

RELATED NEWS

Anil Roberts calls for ‘study’ of Concacaf report.
T&T Guardian Reports.

Sports Minister Anil Roberts is calling for the Law Association of T&T or independent minds to go through the Concacaf report, which accused Jack Warner of committing fraud.

The D’Abadie/O’Meara MP feels that certain things in the report do not sit right and needed opinions of attorneys or independent individuals. Roberts was delivering his contribution on a private motion of the Prime Minister’s failure to deal expeditiously with Warner, on Friday in Parliament.

He said the report had nothing to do with the use of T&T’s funds. “I am going to ask the law association and independent people to go through this (report) to see if whether it was fair and constitute findings.

If this report, as stated here, is also unchallenged by the member for Chaguanas West, the former Concacaf president and there are gaps in the information, then we want to know, as it is a public document.”

Roberts said none of the 38 witnesses’ testimonies was crossed examined. “We were not even told who the witnesses were. Is that evidence?” Roberts said the report fails to sit with the laws of natural justice and due process.

I never abused my power—Jack.
T&T Guardian Reports.

Jack Warner has resigned from being a Cabinet minister, Member of Parliament and UNC chairman. The following is a continuation of his speech which was delivered during a Straight Talk meeting in Felicity on Thursday night.

This has nothing to do with anything wrong that I have done or failed to do in my country. This is a strategy crafted by some conspiratorial cowards who see Jack Warner as an obstacle to their ambitions, both at home and abroad.

The Centre of Excellence issue is just a smoke screen; but if that is where they want to end then that is where I will begin tonight. On April 6, 1990, I was elected president of Concacaf and I assumed office in July some three months later. This is the only time I can recall that Fifa deferred the installation of a president of any confederation for three months.

Another time I will tell you the reason why. I became powerful as the Concacaf president because I was able to increase the membership of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), of which I was also president from 1974 to 2011, into a strong fighting unit to the point where the CFU had 28 out of 40 members in the Concacaf. As the president of the CFU with 28 out of 40 members in the Concacaf, I held a position and a level of power, which I never abused.

In fact when I became president of Concacaf I was given a table, two chairs and $40,000 to work with from the old administration. When I resigned from Concacaf there was some $37 million in the bank, three offices, and unmeasured goodwill. I recall when I first became Concacaf president for months we could not pay the rent and it was Chuck’s wife who had to pay it for us.

I also recall that we could not pay for an audit of the financial records we inherited and it was Kenny Rampersad & Co who did our audit free of charge for years. Kenny, wherever you are, I want to sincerely apologise for whatever pain or embarrassment you and your firm are now experiencing for having associated with Concacaf.

During the period 1992 to 2011, no other president of any confederation brought more countries to Fifa than I did because I was of the view that to expand the beautiful game of football there was need for a paradigm change where even small territories such Anguilla and Aruba, BVI and USVI and even the Cayman Islands should be included. I never had an elitist policy.

As president, my goal was to include and embrace every island state. It is informative to note that the old Concacaf had refused the Cayman Islands membership three times before I became its president. And when I became president of Concacaf in 1990, two years later I made Cayman Islands a member of Concacaf and of Fifa. And today, that very same president of Cayman Islands is the president of Concacaf, though he may have conveniently forgotten how he came to be there.

You would remember that prior to 1996 Caribbean football teams were the butt of international ridicule. No one took us seriously. They laughed at us. They humiliated us on and off the field. Our teams were beaten six-nil, four-nil and 12-nil by Central American and North American countries. And by 1996 I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided that something had to be done to improve the quality of football in the Caribbean.

So I went to Dr Joao Havelange, who was the president of Fifa, and I asked him for a $6 million US loan to open a Centre of Excellence in T&T so that I could lift the level of football in the Caribbean and ultimately the Concacaf. I also decided then that I would use my influence to increase the Concacaf allocation of slots for the Fifa World Cup from one half of what it was then to three and one half what it is today.

Dr Havelange was very sympathetic to me and to my cause. He agreed to provide me with the loan and he so instructed the then Fifa general secretary Sepp Blatter on or about 1997 to proceed accordingly. By 1997, I had taken the loan and I bought the premises of Metal Box and Lever Brothers through two companies which I formed and I also bought lands from Tricon.

But having now bought the land there was nothing I could have done in terms of structure and therefore I went back to Dr Havelange and told him first of all I want the loan to be converted into a grant—a donation—and then I would want his help in terms of getting a structure in place. Dr Havelange’s help to me had not been unusual but I would say more about that later.

So on May 4, 1998, Dr Havelange wrote me and told me that he had found an external solution to convert the loan into a donation.  I have here the letter from Dr Havelange and you can follow on the screens as I ask that the letter be now read to you. Notice the date May 4, 1998.

On May 14, 1998, ten days later, I wrote Dr Havelange, thanking him for the external solution he had found to assist me with the construction of the Centre of Excellence. There is an error in the year of the referenced letter, which should have been 1998 and not 1996.

But notwithstanding that, let’s read: Again, by letter dated May 26, 1998, I wrote to Dr Havelange thanking him for converting the Fifa loan into a gift to the CFU and Jack Warner. On May 29, 1998, Dr Havelange responded by letter expressing his thanks. You may quite rightly ask why all this flurry of letters in the month of May 1998. Well I will tell you. Blatter was Havelange’s candidate to succeed him for the Fifa presidency.

Blatter had been at this time the most hated Fifa official by both the European and African confederations and without my Concacaf support at the Fifa elections, Blatter would never have seen the light of day as president of Fifa. I told Havelange that, through him, Blatter will get Concacaf’s total support and Bin Hammam also said the same day thing though at the time he did not have Asia’s 100 per cent support as I had with the Concacaf. “Votamos como un bloque,” I told my Central American colleagues.

In 1997, Havelange came to Antigua for the Shell Umbro Cup and in an invitation meeting at St James Club, Antigua, again reiterated his request to me. Again I promised him Concacaf’s total support. Then and there he began to count Blatter’s votes and said that if Concacaf supported Blatter he will win by thirty votes. Concacaf at the time had 30 voting members. The Fifa presidential elections were held in Paris on June 8, 1998. I will now ask that the results of that election be read.

Fifty-first Fifa congress in Paris in 1998. After 24 years in office, Havelange decides not to stand for re-election. The congress elects Joseph Blatter as his successor. Rival Lennart Johansson withdraws after Blatter has gained 111 votes to Johansson’s 80 after the first ballot. Joao Havelange becomes a Fifa honorary president. Joseph S Blatter, president of soccer’s world international governing body, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (Fifa), soccer’s world governing body.

Mr Blatter was elected at the 51st ordinary Fifa Congress on June 8, 1998, in Paris, defeating his opponent in the presidential election, Mr Lennart Johansson, by 111:80 votes. Before being elected Fifa president, Mr Blatter was general secretary of Fifa. Mr Blatter was appointed to this position in November 1981 after a distinguished career in business and sport, and was chief executive officer since 1990. Havelange was off by one! Blatter had defeated Johanssen by 31 votes instead of 30!

An interesting development at that Congress was that Haiti was absent and with Blatter’s permission, I got Captain Horace Burrell’s (of Jamaica) girlfriend to vote as the Haitian delegate by saying, “Oui!” when Haiti’s name was called. In 1998, therefore, I had delivered and since then I emerged the second highest sporting personality in the Fifa.

1. I was placed on six out of 11 committees; 2. I was the chairman of two and the deputy chairman of two, one being the prestigious finance committee of the Fifa; 3. Trinidad and Tobago was given the seat to host the Under-17 2001 World Cup, and 4. Additional financial assistance was given for the further construction of the Centre of Excellence.

VIDEO: - See CNC3 Television on Jack Warner.