Surrounded by a whooping entourage, Jack Warner made the kind of sweeping threats and promises that would fit any kind of finished super villain.
In a press conference and in a privately-funded online video, while out on bail, Warner has attempted to convince the world he has “flipped” on the conspirators at FIFA, and can prove a link between key FIFA officials and the various scandals attached to his name.
The former FIFA vice-president and senior CONCACAF official – who once used his formidable influence to bring David Beckham and England to the tiny island of Trinidad and Tobago despite claiming “England has never made any impact on world football” – promised to reveal transactions, names, and a pile of documents a foot thick, in the wake of being arrested under an Interpol red notice.
Warner alleges his foot-thick pile of documents provides evidence implicating embattled ex-president-in-waiting Sepp Blatter.
“I will no longer keep secrets for them,” Warner pledged.
“Not even death will stop the avalanche that is coming… there can be no turning back… let the chips fall where they fall.”
“I reasonably actually fear for my life,” he added woefully.
Only problem is we have heard all of this from Warner before.
In 2011 as he faced a FIFA ethics committee over allegations of offering bribes to members of the Caribbean Football Union in exchange for votes in the FIFA presidential elections, Jack Warner issued dumfoundingly similar promises.
“In the next couple of days you will see a football tsunami that will hit FIFA and the world that will shock you,” he said in 2011.
“The time has come when I must stop playing dead and you’ll see it, 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.”
But in 2011 the promised tsunami never eventuated. Warner did lose his position as vice-president of FIFA, but it seemed he was content to hold on to his information and never offered anything meaningful. Ironically, in 2011 he even referenced his CONCACAF co-conspirator Blazer.
“I have lived three score and almost ten and if my Jack hasn’t been hanged yet, why should it be hung now? By whom? The American Chuck Blazer?” he asked.
Well, yes actually. Former FIFA executive Chuck Blazer has already spilled the beans on his co-conspirators, as part of a smart guilty-plea bargain which will probably see him given a minimal sentence for his involvement in return for turning FBI informant. A fundamental part of Blazer’s deal is pleading guilty to receiving $750,000 from Warner over the 2010 World Cup decision when Blazer was the head of CONCACAF.
The problem for Warner is that with Chuck Blazer, the US Department of Justice already has their rat. And he is singing loudly from the CONCACAF corruption song sheet. Had Warner actually unleashed his tsunami in 2011, he would probably not be in as much trouble as he is in now.
Whether Warner’s big pile of papers is released – or even indeed exists – will become known over the coming months as the US Department of Justice attempts to work their way up the corruption chain using the ‘inform or jail’ methodology that brought down the Mafia.
One thing is certain. Warner’s touted information tsunami will need to land Loretta Lynch a big fish to save his neck this time.
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