Warner: 'I'll still be Concacaf president ...'

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, May 28, 2011

[FIFA IN CRISIS] Embattled Jack Warner said he is prepared to walk away from his position as FIFA vice president if found guilty of offering bribes to members of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) in a scheme with Mohamed bin Hammam to buy support for the Qatari in his bid to unseat FIFA President Sepp Blatter. But Warner said he's still be Concacaf president. And in any event a "football tsunami" was coming that would shock the world ...

Warner was speaking to reporters in his hometown of Port of Spain before leaving for Zurich to face a FIFA ethics committee hearing on Sunday.

"I tell you something, in the next couple days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you," the Concacaf president said. "The time has come when I must stop playing dead so you'll see it, it's coming, trust me you'll see it by now and Monday.

"I have been here for 29 consecutive years and if the worst happen, the worst happen," he added.
Asked if he was prepared to walk away from FIFA at anytime soon, Warner answered, "If that is what it comes to so be it, you must never get too attached to anything, it clouds your judgment and therefore whatever happens, happens, que sera sera. I am not even remotely bothered. I had planned to leave Saturday morning in any case because I have meetings on Sunday afternoon. ... They can do what they want, it doesn't bother me".

Warner said he was not guilty of the charges filed by his longtime Concacaf colleague, Chuck Blazer.

"Me? I have lived three score and almost ten and my Jack hasn't been hanged as yet, why should it be hung now?," Warner asked. "By whom? The American Chuck Blazer? His American lawyer John Collins? Give me a break. I am not the faint-hearted you know ... Let them go ahead, I have no problem with that. But I'll tell you something, I will hold my head high to the very end because, I repeat here again, I am not guilty of a single iota of wrongdoing."

Warner said jealousy was to blame for the attacks against him.

"I am in FIFA for 29 consecutive years," he said. "I was the first black man to have ever been in FIFA at this level. I have come from the smallest country ever to be on the FIFA executive committee. There is no country smaller than Trinidad and Tobago on FIFA's executive committee. I am wielding more power in FIFA now than sometimes even the president, I must be the envy of others. In terms of football history my country does not even have one and therefore there are people out there who would ask why should I be there and what is my role, so I become the butt of all kinds of attacks and I accept this without any kind of anger because I understand people, this is the nature of human beings."

Warner said resentment over Qatar's victory over the USA in the bid for the 2022 World Cup was behind Blazer's charges.

"...And there has been some resentment still and the feeling is that I should not be talking to him [Bin Hammam] or his friends. I voted for the U.S. like Mr. Blazer and I, like Mr Blazer, was devastated over the fact that the US lost. But I will not allow that to impugn Mr. Bin Hammam's character or to destroy our friendship. I am not that kind of person and if Mr. Blazer and they want to do that, let them go ahead."

Warner said Americans had it in for him.

"The U.S. is accusing me of not working hard enough for them," he said. "What more you want me to do, go in the people house and sleep with them? I can't do that! I did for the U.S. all I could have done. This is an election time in FIFA, it happens every time ... especially when there is a contender. FIFA politics is far bigger than the politics you have seen here. It make our politics here look like child's play. Now at the end of the day, if even the worst happens, I'm still president of CONCACAF."