Disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has been banned for life by FIFA’s ethics committee and described as a “key player” involved in illegal payments.
Warner, who is fighting extradiction from Trinidad to the USA on corruption charges, resigned from FIFA in 2011 following a bribery scandal and has not been involved since then.
FIFA’s ethics committee opened an investigation into Warner earlier this year and has now banned him for life from football-related activities.
A statement from the ethics committee said: “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.
“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.”
The decision was taken on the basis of investigations carried out by the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee following its report on the inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process.
The chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, Dr Cornel Borbely, who took over the chairmanship from his predecessor in late December 2014, immediately opened the investigation into Warner’s activities in January 2015.
The ban is effective from September 25, 2015, the date on which the present decision was notified.
Warner claims there is no coincidence that his ban has been announced at the same time that Blatter and Michel Platini are themselves under scrutiny from the ethics committee.
He said in an email on Tuesday: “I left the FIFA in April 2011 and if in September 2015 the FIFA wants to ban me for life without even a hearing then so be it. I do not believe however that this will serve as the distraction to the FIFA’s present problems as the FIFA wishes it to be.
“Given what is happening in Zurich with Blatter I wish to say that there is no such thing as coincidence.”