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World

Ex-FIFA vice-president banned for life

By SkyNews
Published | Updated
Trinidad and Tobado Warner

June 3, 2015: Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner speaks at a political rally in Marabella, Trinidad and Tobago. (AP Photo/Anthony Harris)

FIFA's ethics committee has banned former vice-president Jack Warner from taking part in any football-related activity for life.

He is accused of misconduct following an investigation into the bidding contest for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The decision comes as Warner fights extradition from Trinidad on US charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.

Warner quit FIFA in 2011 after being implicated in an earlier bribery scandal.

Football's world governing body said at the time the "presumption of innocence is maintained".

But in Tuesday's ruling, FIFA said Warner "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".

He is said to have been involved in the "offer, acceptance, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments".

Earlier FIFA presidential contender Chung Mong-joon called for an emergency task force to be set up to run FIFA during the present crisis.

With President Sepp Blatter under criminal investigation over a payment to UEFA boss Michel Platini and general secretary Jerome Valcke suspended, South Korean Chung said the organisation was in "total meltdown."

"Under such circumstances, FIFA and regional confederations should consider convening extraordinary sessions of their respective executive committee(s) as well as congress to set-up an emergency task force," Chung, a former vice-president under Blatter, said in a statement.

He went on: "FIFA is currently facing an unprecedented crisis. However, this is also an unprecedented opportunity to reform it.

"If all those who love football can bring their collective wisdom to bear on reforming FIFA, it will be possible to save and revitalise it.

"The most urgent task at hand is to root out corruption from within FIFA."

Chung, a billionaire businessman and member of the family that founded Hyundai, was a FIFA vice-president for 17 years until 2011.

"I am sad to say that, at the time, I did not have the power to stop such corrupt practices that have now come back to haunt and destroy FIFA," he lamented.

Blatter has denied any wrongdoing and is refusing to step down until his successor is chosen next February.