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by Guest Thu Oct 13, 2011 2:02 pm
Former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner claims the leak of a video that shows him encouraging officials to accept cash gifts from Mohamed Bin Hammam is evidence of a "conspiracy" against Caribbean delegates.
Warner was charged with bribery earlier this year but resigned his post in June, leading FIFA to announce the investigation against him had been "closed and the presumption of innocence maintained".
However, 15 Caribbean officials are still facing ethics committee hearings and, with the video being leaked this week, Warner believes it constitutes a deliberate attempt to influence proceedings.
"The release of this video is tantamount to contempt because it seeks to influence international opinion against what is clearly a conspiracy against the delegates of the Caribbean Football Union," Warner wrote in an email to the Press Association.
"Moreover there are a lot more questions which the FIFA should answer from this convenient revelation.
"The Caribbean delegates are currently in Zurich and are actively involved in disciplinary proceedings established by the FIFA so this leak is clearly subjudicious (sic) and contrary to the very principles of law and justice.
"Regretfully, this is what defines the FIFA; a perceived right to do all in its power, right or wrong, to defend its own."
The video of Warner appears to have been made on a mobile phone and he believes that constitutes evidence of "entrapment".
He added: "Never before has a covert video been made, let alone been published, in the history of CFU. It is clear that those who recorded the meeting, and subsequently made certain that the video went global, are engaged in entrapment.
"It is therefore not paranoia nor mindless talk to speak of a conspiracy by those who had an agenda: the one to weaken the CONCACAF through its largest voting bloc, the CFU, and thus ascertain that Caribbean men and women are excluded from the decision-making process in CONCACAF and FIFA in the future."
Warner went on to highlight the Swiss influence at FIFA - including president Sepp Blatter, the chairman of the ethics committee Claudio Sulser and the chairman of the disciplinary committee Marcel Mathier, who has also acted as Blatter's lawyer.
"The Swiss seem to have a morality of its own," Warner said, adding that he had more revelations to come. "FIFA cannot be allowed to continue tarnishing the images and characters of good men.
"For it is clear that the FIFA is determined to stop at nothing as they seek to destroy, to extirpate those they have defined as their enemies from any sphere of influence.
"However, truth crushed to the ground will rise again. At the end of the day, the truth will prevail. In time, truth will always arise."
