By Andrew Warshaw
October 12 – Disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, who resigned from football in the wake of last year’s cash-for-votes scandal but is still a prominent politician in his native Trinidad and Tobago as National Security Minister, is once again under the spotlight – this time for allegedly exploiting his country’s own federation.
Local media reports have quoted opposition leader Keith Rowley as alleging that Warner (pictured top) asked Sports Minister Anil Roberts to stop providing funds to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) earlier this year.
The request to starve the federation of funds allegedly came in a letter sent in April by Warner, who was Works Minister at the time.
“The Minister instructed the Sports Minister not to give them funding – and he is a person who is banned from having anything to do with football,” Rowley told Parliament.
“The [Sports] Minister must tell the country if all of this ill-treatment of the country’s footballers has anything to do with the letter he received from the former FIFA vice-president, who has been banned from football.”
Rowley (pictured above) charged that Warner’s letter was in violation of him walking away from football.
“So the bottom line is this: our footballers are in the worst position they have ever been because the Minister of Works instructed the Minister of Sports not to provide any money to footballers,” Rowley declared.
“And that is a Minister who is ostensibly banned from having anything to do with football.
“What more power can one have over football in this country than to instruct that football not be funded?
“I want to hear from FIFA about this.”