Embattled former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, of Trinidad and Tobago, believes his “nightmare is over,” after the United States Supreme Court and a lower court threw out the convictions of two defendants linked to football corruption in September last year.

According to a January 27, 2024 New York Times article, these rulings “cast doubt on the legal basis for a host of prosecutions” surrounding those involved in scandals coming out of the December 2015 raids on FIFA officials in Zurich, Switzerland.

In June 2011, Warner, who was then provisionally suspended by the world football governing body for alleged corruption, resigned from all his international football posts. Warner was one of 14 top FIFA officials and corporate executives to be accused of corruption, fraud and money laundering while he was FIFA vice-president.

Warner was later indicted in 29 charges of corruption in the US in 2015. Extradition proceedings against him remain on hold.

In an interview with i95.5FM last Thursday, Warner said the court’s ruling to toss the convictions of an ex-21st Century Fox executive and sports marketing company on corruption charges in a case involving FIFA has him feeling relieved.

That September case, according to the New York Times, is one in which “the two defendants benefited from two recent Supreme Court rulings that had rejected federal prosecutors’ application of the law at play in the soccer cases and offered rare guidance on what is known as honest services fraud.

“The defendants in the soccer trial had been found to have engaged in bribery that deprived organizations outside the US of their employees’ honest services, which constituted fraud at the time. But the judge ruled that the court’s new guidance meant that those actions were no longer prohibited under American law.”

On this decision, Warner declared his agreement.

“I am in firm agreement with the US Supreme Court statement on the matter. I always knew the US were wrong to attack and destroy FIFA and destroy people’s lives just because they didn’t get a World Cup venue,” Warner said, referring to the US' failed 2022 World Cup bid.

That World Cup bid was won by Qatar, but several FIFA officials, including Warner, were accused of accepting bribes.

“It is utterly ridiculous for people to be imprisoned and to be charged for being a member of a private organisation as FIFA, and to be charged by the US government on what they did or did not do during their stay in FIFA,” Warner argued.

“I am feeling relieved. My life has been destroyed, my family’s life has been destroyed and I have spent tonnes of money on this matter. All I did was to tell FIFA that it is time to change the paradigm of giving the World Cup to Europe and South America. I said to them, ‘just go to the Middle East’.

“It is this that has caused me to be where I am today. The irony is that people in the Middle East, thanks to my efforts and others, Qatar (which hosted the World Cup in 2022) has produced one of the best World Cups this world has ever seen. So, I feel vindicated in a sense for what I have done, but the price that I have paid for that is overbearing,” he added.

Former Trinidad & Tobago goalkeeper and current ESPN analyst Shaka Hislop believes it will be a long time before CONCACAF elects another Caribbean president after the scandals surrounding former CONCACAF Presidents Jack Warner and Jeffrey Webb.

“I don’t anticipate, despite the political strength of the Caribbean nations within CONCACAF, another CONCACAF president from the Caribbean or the CFU for quite some time,” Hislop said during the Caribbean Conference on Corruption, Compliance and Cyber Crime held virtually last week.

“You have two presidents back-to-back, both black men from the Caribbean, both swept up in that scandal and, as a result, I think regionally there was a lack of trust around Caribbean administrators,” he added.

Canadian businessman Victor Montagliani has been CONCACAF president since May 2016.

Trinidad’s Warner served as CONCACAF President from 1990-2011. He was indicted on fraud charges and banned from all football-related activities by FIFA for life in 2015.

US prosecutors allege that from as far back as 1990, he leveraged his influence and exploited his official positions for personal gain.

Among other things, the 79-year-old former football administrator is accused of receiving US$5 million in bribes to vote for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup. 

In November this year, Warner lost his fight at the Privy Council against extradition to the United States on corruption charges.

Webb, a Caymanian, took the reins as head of CONCACAF from 2012-2015. 

In May 2015, Webb was arrested for corruption charges by Swiss police acting at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. That same month he was banned by FIFA Ethics Committee and ,in November 2015, pleaded guilty and agreed to forfeit more than US$6.7 million.

“We are living that legacy; We are still hoping that people take notice of the Caribbean. We are not able to advocate for ourselves and, for me, that is a desperate position for us to be in but that is the position that we have found ourselves in because of the legacies of those two people,” Hislop said.

Hislop, who was born in London and represented clubs like Newcastle United and West Ham United throughout his 15-year career, said he hopes some good comes out of the situation.

“Longer term, I hope that what has happened forces change, not just in Caribbean or Concacaf football, but in world football. Recognizing how easily the system can be perverted and how you need to have those checks and balances to better serve the global game.”

Former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner can be extradited from his homeland of Trinidad to the United States to face corruption charges, a London court said today (November 17).

Warner’s lawyers argued that his extradition was unlawful but London’s Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for many Commonwealth countries, unanimously dismissed his appeal.

Suspicion and rumours have surrounded the 2010 votes by FIFA’s executive to hand the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 edition to Qatar.

In 2020, a US Department of Justice indictment said bribes were paid to soccer officials to secure their votes for hosting rights.

The DOJ alleged that then FIFA vice-president Warner was paid US$5 million through various shell companies to vote for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.

His role as president of CONCACAF, which organises soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, gave him enormous influence as a powerbroker for former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter.

A former member of the FIFA Executive Committee and former CONCACAF president, Warner was suspended by FIFA in 2011 and in 2015, charged with wire fraud, racketeering and money-laundering by the US.

FIFA banned him from all soccer-related activity for life in 2015. The 79-year-old has always denied any wrongdoing.