Warner vows ‘tsunami’ of corruption claims

Warner said last night he will make the allegations once former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam completes his appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport against a life ban for bribery. “I have promised in the past a tsunami that would hit the Fifa and, indeed, it will come,” Warner, who was on FIFA’s ruling executive committee for 28 years, wrote in a letter to a newspaper in his native Trinidad.

A verdict in bin Hammam’s appeal to CAS is not expected for several months. The bribery scandal ended Warner’s career in football when he resigned in June to avoid investigation of his role in arranging $40,000 payments for Caribbean voters during bin Hammam’s election challenge to Blatter.

Warner’s 1,300-word missive published by the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian stated that he and bin Hammam helped Blatter win “bitter” and “brutal” elections in 1998 and 2002.

He said his revelations would make FIFA’s sponsors – which include Adidas, Coca-Cola, Sony and Visa – “cringe with painful surprise.” The threats were published three days before Blatter announces details of an anti-corruption drive promised when Fifa member nations gave the 75-year-old Swiss official a final four-year term unopposed in June.

“Blatter now suddenly sees the need to reform the FIFA from within in his last term of office and in the sunset of his days,” Warner wrote. “This is hypocritical to say the least.”