How the cash-for-votes deal went down

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, May 29, 2011

[FIFA IN CRISIS] As a FIFA ethics committee heard charges Sunday in Zurich in the money-for-votes scandal that rocked the governing body, details of the now-infamous Caribbean Football Union May 10-11 at the Hyatt Regency in Port of Spain, Trinidad, began to emerge.

According to Paul Kelso of the Daily Telegraph, who was shown a copy of the report submitted by American attorney John Collins to FIFA, Concacaf President Jack Warner directed delegates to a conference room to pick up their "gift" from the CFU for attending a 40-minute speech by then-FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam.

The "gift" was $40,000 in an envelope filled with $100 bills.

According to Trinidadian Lasana Liburd, an investigative reporter, in his story with Play the Game, the delegates weren't exactly the most secretive.

They were told to keep quiet about the gifts, but delegates from one country opened the envelope and split the money right on the spot.

According to the Collins report, Warner told the Caribbean delegates a different version of the story when they reconvened the next day: “Mr. Warner then told the officials that the cash payments they had received [or been offered] the day before were actually from Mr. Bin Hammam."

And that “Mr Warner explained that the officials could use this money however they saw fit. He then stated that if some officials did not want the money, then they could give it to other officials.”

No only did some officials refuse to take the money, they ratted on Warner and bin Hammam to American Chuck Blazer, the longtime general secretary of Concacaf.

Bahamas FA president Anton Sealey led the group that included representatives from Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Turks & Caicos Islands.