Warner accuses Fifa of devastating lives in the Caribbean

The article below is reproduced unedited from the Guardian newspaper in the UK

Jack Warner has accused Fifa of "devastating lives" and damaging football in the Caribbean in an attempt to clean up its image. Fifa, which last month charged 16 Caribbean officials over the bribery scandal, has also terminated a multimillion-pound TV rights deal with the Caribbean Football Union.

Warner, who resigned as Fifa's vice-president and CFU president in June after being charged with bribery, said he had been prepared to be the "sacrificial lamb" and had been led to believe Fifa would not pursue the matter.

Fifa last month announced the names of the Caribbean officials who would face ethics committee proceedings in connection to the meeting in Trinidad on 10 May which led to the former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam being banned for life for giving bribes totalling around $1m (£610,000).

"When I resigned from Fifa of my own volition, it was because I was prepared to pay the ultimate price and become the sacrificial lamb for alleged wrongdoings prior to the Fifa elections," Warner said. "I was led to believe that that would have been the end of the matter as far as I was concerned.

"Never did I believe that Fifa would have engaged in such an acrimonious battle with the Caribbean Football Union, an organisation which for 33 years has served Fifa well and demonstrated its loyalty not only to Fifa but its president [Sepp Blatter].

"Such ignoble pursuit has nothing to do with the cleansing of corruption within Fifa but rather to offer the perception of an aura of cleansing within Fifa. In their pursuit they have devastated the lives of many persons, destroyed many golden friendships which were forged over the years and sadly affected generations of footballers to come within the region of the Caribbean.

"All this has been perpetuated by the men of Fifa's gentry who were once viewed as friends of the CFU. This is done in the name of seeking to cleanse Fifa of all corruption."

Warner criticised Fifa for not investigating Chuck Blazer, the US Fifa member who blew the whistle on the bribery. Blazer, who worked under Warner as general secretary of Concacaf for more than a decade, has confirmed he receives a percentage of the federation's sponsorship deals as part of his salary package.

Warner added: "To maintain their whiteness, their whistleblower must never be tainted and so their [Fifa's] bias, their prejudice and their partiality continue unabated favouring a certain kind of people and damning another."

Fifa terminated a multimillion-pound 2014 World Cup TV deal with the CFU after discovering the rights had been sub-licensed to a company owned by Warner. The CFU was told in a letter from Fifa it had not approved the sub-licensing deal with Warner's company JD International (JDI). Warner sold the rights to the Jamaica-based cable TV station SportsMax in 2007 for a fee reported to be between $18m and $20m, though that included the 2010 World Cup as well. Fifa was owed several payments dating back to 2009 for the rights, which covered 29 Caribbean countries.