Shock Horror! World Cup 2022 Investigation Reveals Ex-FIFA Vice President Jack Warner Paid Millions By Qatari Company Linked To Bid Process

Chris Wright

18th, March 2014

7 Comments

By Chris Wright

Soccer Warner Haiti

Position yourselves over your Victorian fainting couches people, for this is going to come as quite a shock.

Documents released pertaining to an investigation carried out into the bidding process for the 2022 Qatar World Cup appear to show that former FIFA vice president Jack Warner and members of his family was paid millions of pounds by a Qatari company controlled by ex-Asian Football Confederation president Mohammed bin Hammam.

The Telegraph, who have been conducting the aforementioned investigation into the bid, reported their findings thus:

“Jack Warner, the former vice-president of Fifa, appears to have been personally paid $1.2 million (£720,000) from a company controlled by a former Qatari football official (Bin Hammam) shortly after the decision to award the country the tournament.

“Payments totalling almost $750,000 (£450,000) were made to Mr Warner’s sons, documents show. A further $400,000 (£240,000) was paid to one of his employees.

“It is understood that the FBI is now investigating Trinidad-based Mr Warner and his alleged links to the Qatari bid, and that the former Fifa official’s eldest son, who lives in Miami, has been helping the inquiry as a co-operating witness.”

The Telegraph go on to say that the FBI’s interest was piqued when the payments to Warner and his swarthy chums were processed by a bank in New York having already been turned down by “at least one bank in the Cayman Islands”.

Warner resigned from his FIFA post in 2011 after being suspended over allegations that he and Bin Hammam conspired to bribe Caribbean officials with envelopes stuffed with £25,000 in return for their votes while the latter was attempting to usurp Sepp Blatter in the last FIFA presidential election.

Bin Hammam was banned for life by FIFA’s Ethics committee but the ban was later overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Call us cynics, but we reckon one more round of bribery allegations isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to the 2022 World Cup and when or where it’s staged.

After all, what’s a bit of collusion between friends?

Posted in FAIL, Newsnow, World Cup

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7 Comments

  1. Wynton says:

    Shock horror?? Not quite! I didn’t expect anything less. There’s hardly a global organization these days which is more corrupt but as influential at the same time as the FIFA. This latest episode of official bribing is just the tip of the iceberg.

  2. Notwyn says:

    @Wynton, you seem to have missed the glaring tones of sarcasm. I think what Chris is saying is that FIFA is repeatedly embarrassing itself but not only that, no one will be surprised that there was bribery involved in having the World Cup hosted in Qatar. A place of 40-50 degree heat in the summer and a shitload of oil-money

  3. porcelain sandwich says:

    The fact that you didn’t get the sarcasm astounds me, Wynton.

    This is all very annoying though – I’m sure the FA would have been perfectly happy to hand over the equivalent of 5 weeks of Rooney’s wages to have the thing staged in England.

  4. YourMum says:

    Wynton is being a right Herbert

  5. rone says:

    You would think that the U.S. Korea and Japan (who have all hosted world cups before) and even Australia (where I’m from) would have superior infrastructure and a more benign climate to host a world cup. Obviously there are underlying reasons why Qatar won the bid. 40-50 degree heat every day is not conducive to great football and could place players health in jeopardy. We get a few 40+ degree days here most years in summer (over xmas) and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to play 90+ minutes in those conditions!

  6. Terry Shedingham says:

    I saw on the front of one of the papers today a headline about this story and a comment genuinely describing it as surprising!

    Is there really anyone alive who doesn’t know that FIFA is rotten to the core?

  7. TravisKOP says:

    They fucked up going into the US with this. Now FIFA will be exposed to investigation from an American agency in the FBI and they wont just drop this. I suspect Subpoenas and sanctions on FIFA’s behalf. Maybe even a forced revote! Wouldn’t that be joyous!

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