Guest column - The hanging of Jack Warner - by Robin Montano

Just about everyone in the entire world is familiar with the terrible scandal that has engulfed FIFA, the controlling body of world football and the accusations against arguably the most powerful of FIFA's vice-presidents, Jack Warner. 

Very briefly, the facts that are in the public domain are as follows:

• The United States and England were extremely upset when they lost their respective bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals in favour of Russia and Qatar
• The English were so upset that the head of the English football delegation some months after the decision that Qatar was the successful applicant for the 2022 finals accused Jack Warner of asking for a bribe
• This accusation was made even more explosive as Lord Triesman (the English football head) made these accusations before a House of Commons Committee that was looking into why the English did not get the 2022 World Cup
• Mr. Warner was finally completely cleared of Treisman's allegations
• In the meantime, the election of a President for FIFA was coming up on June 1st
• Mr. Mohammed Bin Hammam, from Qatar, a vice president of FIFA, had thrown his hat in the ring and was challenging the incumbent Sepp Blatter for the Presidency
• Bin Hammam was prevented from attending a Concacaf meeting in Miami in
• April because he was denied a visa by USA authorities
• In order that he could meet with Concacaf delegates and make his pitch to them as to why they should vote for him instead of Mr. Blatter he asked Mr. Warner to organise a meeting with Concacaf delegates in Trinidad in early May. Mr. Warner obliged
• After the meeting Mr. Warner was quoted in the press as saying that he would not divulge whether or not he would support Mr. Blatter
• At that stage all hell broke loose. The General Secretary of Concacaf, one Chuck Blazer, reported to Mr. Blatter that Messrs. Warner and Bin Hammam had had a meeting with Concacaf delegates in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain and had given each of the delegates an envelope containing US$40,000 in cash
• The delegates from Puerto Rico and the Bahamas backed Blazer's accusations. But, interestingly no other delegates did. In fact, the delegate from Grenada has been reported as saying that if this was true he was clearly being discriminated against as he received nothing at all
• The FIFA Ethics Committee summoned Messrs. Bin Hammam and Warner to a meeting on Sunday 29th May, some 3 days before the Presidential election, and decided, without giving either Warner or Bin Hammam a chance to defend themselves properly, that there was a prima facie case to answer
• Accordingly, both men were summarily suspended from all FIFA duties and positions until there could be a full hearing ... which would be (very conveniently for Blatter) after the election. Bin Hammam withdrew from the race and Blatter was elected unopposed
• Then Lyle Austin, who became the acting President for Concacaf in place of the suspended Jack Warner, fired Chuck Blazer for hiring a big time American law firm without the approval of the executive committee of Concacaf
• Then it is announced that Blazer is not fired but that Austin is now suspended for purporting to fire Blazer without proper authority. But it is noticeable that the committee purporting to suspend Austin is made up of only 4 delegates!

I apologise for the rather lengthy list above, but it is important to keep all of the above in mind when listening to all of the sound and fury that is going on. 

Clearly there is a lot more behind the scenes and anything that anybody says right now (including yours truly) can end up being so much hot air. 

But having said that, I think that it is possible to come to the tentative conclusion that the old Jack Warner simply ain't gonna get a fair hearing from the Ethics Committee whose behaviour on Sunday 29th May showed quite clearly that they weren't at all bothered by fair play and ethics, but that the most important thing was to get Jack and Bin Hammam out of the way at all costs.

One of the things to notice, and one of the reasons that I say this is because I find it strange to say the least how Blazer could hire a law firm without apparent authority and be backed up by Blatter for so doing. 

But Mr. Austin is suspended for trying to put the American in his place! There is something that simply isn't right here. 

That there are many who would like to see Jack hanged (not literally, of course) but to all the right thinking members of that group I would say that by all means go ahead and hang him. 

But make sure you do so only after he gets a fair trial. And quite frankly, while I will readily concede that I could be wrong, the truth is that I genuinely believe that Blatter is out to "kill" Jack and will do so at the earliest possible opportunity ... and truth, justice and fair play be damned!!

Read more from Robin Montano at the RAG