FIFA bans ex-VP Warner for life

FIFA has banned former vice president Jack Warner for life over misconduct following an investigation into the bidding contest for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

After being implicated in an earlier bribery scandal, Warner quit FIFA in 2011. The governing body said at the time that 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.”

FIFA said Warner was involved in the “offer, acceptance, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments.”

The 72-year-old's ban covers all football activity at both a national and international level and is effective from September 25.

“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 FIFA statement said.

Warner is also fighting extradition from his homeland in Trinidad and Tobago to the U.S. to face 12 charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering related to the ongoing FIFA corruption scandal.

He faces a hearing in his homeland in December. U.S. authorities, who have charged 14 FIFA officials and sports marketing executives of soliciting and receiving more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks over two decades, applied in July for Warner's extradition.

Warner has previously been a member of parliament and president of the federation represending North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF) as well as the Caribbean Football Union subgroup.

He is accused, amongst other things, of buying the television rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cup tournaments from FIFA president Sepp Blatter for grossly deflated sums. 

Wire services