PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, Sep 29 2015 – Disgraced former FIFA official Jack Warner has been banned from football for life by world soccer’s governing body.
The former FIFA vice-president quit football four years ago amid a string of corruption allegations and is facing fraud charges as part of a United States investigation.
FIFA’s Ethics Committee handed down the ban to Warner, who served as president of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) between 1990 and 2011.
It comes after criminal proceedings were opened against FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Friday by Swiss authorities.
It is investigating a contract signed with the Caribbean Football Union, then run by Warner that was deemed “unfavorable for FIFA” and an alleged “disloyal payment” of two million Swiss francs (about $2 million) to Michel Platini, the head of European football body UEFA, made in 2011.
All three men deny any wrongdoing.
“Mr Warner was found to have committed many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF,” a FIFA statement said.
“In his positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, as well as other money-making schemes.”
It said the ban was effective from September 25, the date on which the decision was made.
Warner was arrested in May in his native Trinidad and Tobago after the U.S. attorney Loretta Lynch accused him and a clutch of current or former FIFA officials of running a “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” racket.
He quit FIFA in 2011 after he was suspended pending a bribery inquiry. After his resignation, FIFA said the investigation had been closed and “the presumption of innocence is maintained.”
FIFA was plunged into crisis in late May when seven officials were charged by the FBI with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
The charges are part of a U.S. prosecution that indicted a total of 14 people from around the globe.
