Former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner banned for life from football activities

Jack Warner has been banned for life by Fifa's ethics committee

DISGRACED former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner has been banned for life by the organisation's ethics committee.

 

The committee have taken the action four years after Warner stepped out of the football limelight.

The ruling coincides with an investigation into Sepp Blatter’s disgraced former vice-president, who is also facing criminal charges in the United States over an alleged £100 million fraud.

 

A Fifa statement read: "The adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee, chaired by Hans-Joachim Eckert, has decided to ban the former FIFA Vice-President and Executive Committee member as well as CONCACAF President, Mr Jack Warner, from taking part in any kind of football-related activity at national and international level for life.

"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.

 

Sepp Blatter is also being investigated by the same ethics committee

"The chairman of the investigatory chamber of the Ethics Committee, Dr Cornel Borbély, who took over the chairmanship from his predecessor in late December 2014, immediately opened the investigation into Mr Warner’s activities in January 2015.

"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."

 

Warner’s ban is effective from 25 September 2015, and comes as Fifa’s ethics committee examines evidence that could lead to the suspension of Blatter and Michel Platini over a £1.3m suspected criminal payment to the UEFA president.

The ethics committee previously chose not to pursue a case against the former president of Concacaf, because he was no longer involved in football.

But a change of policy saw it go after Trinidad and Tobago’s former minister of national security, even though he has little prospect of returning to the game.

  

Fifa's ethics committee are also looking into Michel Platini's activity

Warner has been faced with allegations of corruption and in 2013 was found guilty by an ‘integrity committee’ of defrauding Concacaf and Fifa.

He was one of several current or former senior football officials arrested this summer over alleged fraud dating back decades.

Criminal proceedings were opened against Fifa president Blatter on Friday both over the Platini payment and a television contract signed with Warner back in 2005. All three men deny any wrongdoing.

Before resigning, Warner had been a member of Fifa’s executive committee since 1983 and Concacaf president since 1990.