Three years after Germany 2006, Warner holds on to players’ bonus

Warner, the head of FIFA U-17 committee is currently in Nigeria for the ongoing FIFA U-17 World Cup.

Hislop who was goalkeeper for Trinidad and Tobago at that World Cup and who is now a commentator with ESPN told NEXTSports from his base in America that Nigerians should appeal to Warner to pay the players who qualified for the World Cup for the first time that year.

“Nigerians should appeal to him to pay the players in the name of fair play for FIFA. Fair play should start with Warner paying us our money,” Hislop said.

Another World Cup here

With another World Cup just a few months away, Hislop cannot understand why they have not been paid. Giving an insight into the issue, Hislop said: “The players won at the arbitration. It was Warner that told us to go the arbitration, which we did and won on all counts in 2008, but now he wants to take us to the High Court for an appeal and that is where we are right now.

So we are waiting for the decision of the High Court this month. As at now he has not paid like 13 of the players. I think he has paid between eight and 10 players who have accepted a very small payment but 13 have refused to receive the payment because we believe that the figure they have provided is not correct.”

Breach of trust?

“We had an agreement on the money, first it was 70-30, then Warner changed it to 50-50 and we agreed, that is where we are now; we have not seen any of that money. The experience is varying for the players. For me, I retired from international football immediately after the World Cup but for the others... Warner blacklisted everybody else; they could not feature for the national team. He eventually recalled some others like eight months later but effectively Warner has frozen out all the players that took him to court.”

Relief for Hislop

When the court of arbitration ruled in favour of the players, Hislop and others were relieved, but the football federation shifted the goalpost again. Though they acknowledged the arbitrator’s decision they pointed out that “both parties agreed that the arbitration hearings will be in private and no one is allowed to disclose the contents of the proceedings and/or the judgment.”

As of today, the federation has not respected the ruling.

Claims and counter claims

According to Play The Game, an international body fighting corruption in sports, the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation may have understated its earnings by 173 million Trinidad and Tobago Dollars (USD 28 million), devaluing bonus payments for national team players.

Players of the Trinidad and Tobago national team, the Soca Warriors, were promised equal shares in a bonus fund of 50 per cent of the revenues of World Cup earnings gathered by the TTFF for qualifying for the 2006 World Cup in a deal hammered out between the players and TTFF special advisor Jack Warner.

The TTFF quoted World Cup earnings at TTD 18.25 million (approximately USD 3 million), and claiming costs of TTD 17.9 million, initially offered players a bonus of a little under USD 1000.

This figure came as a surprise to Hislop. “As little as we knew about football finances that figure just didn’t seem right given the fanfare and corporate involvement with the team during Germany 2006,” he said.

Greedy players

Warner had earlier accused the players of greed. In a statement to CMC Sports, Warner said “What Trinidad is suffering from is from a situation whereby 16 or 18 players are holding a country and a federation to ransom because of greed.”

No comment

Efforts to get Warner and FIFA officials to speak on Hislop and Warner’s statement were abortive.

FIFA’s media officer Wolfgang Resch said on Thursday that Warner, since arriving Nigeria, has granted two interviews and that it will be difficult to get Warner to do a one-on-one interview, “It will be difficult to speak to him; he is not available.”

Resch will also not respond to Hislop and Jennings’ allegations on the phone. Answering a call placed across to him, he said: “I can hardly hear you, please send your questions.”

When NEXTSports sent the question via SMS, he replied that he would prefer an e-mail.

A mail was sent to the address he gave, the response was an out-of-office instant response.

All efforts to speak with Resch since then have been unsuccessful. Hopefully, Warner will read this and react to Hislop and Jennings.

It’s like the rich robbing the poor, says Jennings.
NEXT Sports.

British journalist Andrew Jennings is an investigative reporter, writer and documentary filmmaker. He is best known for his work on corruption in sports organisations and the politics of international sports, particularly within FIFA and the International Olympic Committee.

In 2006 Jennings investigated several allegations of bribery within FIFA for BBC’s Panorama, including million dollar bribes to secure marketing rights for company ISL along with vote-buying (to secure the position of FIFA president Sepp Blatter), bribery and graft attributed to CONCACAF president Jack Warner. Jennings told Olukayode Thomas in Johannesburg, that Warner’s decision not to pay the players is like the rich robbing the poor.

2006 FIFA World Cup qualification bonus for Trinidad and Tobago players.

FIFA’s position is that they are not prepared to do anything, because I interviewed Shaka Hislop for a BBC Television Film a couple years ago in Trinidad and he told me they had written to FIFA, but they said ‘no, it’s a domestic matter, we would refer you back to the Trinidad Federation’ controlled of course by Warner. That is disgraceful. FIFA has failed the players; FIFA is not prepared to support the players against one of its own.

Picture of FIFA in Africa as a decent organisation

Sepp Blatter needs votes; it’s all about his survival. It is like politicians going towards an election, they try to make happy as many constituents as possible by directing public works to them. All these are done by politicians and we see it in every country.

Blatter, to survive in power, has to keep the two most important regional confederations happy, that is UEFA and CAF, because there is a lot of vote in Africa and they’ve got be kept very happy so if you give them three tournaments in the space of 12 months then there is going to be a lot of jobs for the boys, lots of money floating around, lots of nice hotels and lots of expenses to be claimed. Isn’t Blatter a nice fellow?

So the whole thing is a deceit?

It is the fault of many sports reporters and editors because they don’t ask the question. FIFA is a big corrupt conspiracy, this was established in courts. It’s not a journalist saying it; it’s a Swiss court.

You should also know this, that there is a continuing criminal investigation in Switzerland into FIFA and Blatter.

Attacking Warner because he is black

That is rather desperately pathetic, isn’t it? I am very friendly with many black people, it just has to be disregarded and I don’t even get angry with Warner. If it was somebody else that said I was a racist, I would be concerned if I had made a mistake somewhere, but of course I know I have not but if it’s coming from Warner again it is a diversion.

Look back to 2005 when Trinidad and Tobago was at the World Cup in Germany 2006. That team is, with one exception, black. There was one white man. He was born in Trinidad and so he qualifies as all of the rest. 23 out of the 24-man squad were black men as you might expect from Trinidad.

You might ask Warner why he refuses to pay those men their money. I campaign for those men, and I really don’t want to go ahead making a point that I am a white man campaigning for those black men because it is irrelevant. I am a journalist who sees some footballers who have been duped.

Why the players deserve their allowances

I feel very bad about it because in the Trinidad squad, there were very few highly paid players in England. The goal keeper, Shaka Hislop, has been earning top money in Newcastle and other Premier League teams.

But Shaka, though rich, shouldn’t be robbed. Most of that squad were journeymen footballers playing in the lower leagues around Europe. They did so well to get their team to the last 32 and they represented their country with great dignity and fans may remember when Trinidad played England in Germany. Peter Crouch was going after the ball when Brent Sancho grabbed his dreadlocks and pulled him down, that was cheating, but Sancho didn’t punch him on the nose, he took it.

It was the dignity as a good player since the referee didn’t see it; they represented their country beautifully and they are entitled at the end of their careers to that money contractually and morally because they are not going to make a lot of money once their legs go.

Manipulating the law

The case has been to arbitration, he lost out at the arbitration but he still refuses to pay. The players have taken him to court in Trinidad, he is trying to change the legal title of the Trinidad federation.

This is called stealing. I would suggest to you that the next time that Warner tries to come to Nigeria, in the interest of all black footballers in the world, you don’t give him a visa, throw the man out of the country.