PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC-Trinidad and Tobago’s football chief, Raymond Tim Kee, has spoken out in defense of Jack Warner, the embattled former Vice president of football’s world governing body FIFA.
Tim Kee has said that Warner, also a former president of CONCACAF and Caribbean Football Union (CFU), must be credited for his role in raising the stature of football in the Twin island Republic.
Warner is among a number of current and former FIFA officials arrested last week as part of a probe by US law enforcement authorities.
He was charged with 12 offences related to racketeering, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed in the jurisdiction of the United States and Trinidad and Tobago, dating as far back as 1990.
“Remember when Mr Warner was president of CONCACAF and CFU, he was very much inward thinking in terms of what Trinidad is getting into,” said Tim Kee on Monday.
“Warner worked so hard to the point where our funny kind of thinking people felt that he was pulling strings for Trinidad’s benefit. All the rumours about Warner setting up matches for Trinidad to win and other ideas of the sort all of a sudden began to circulate”.
Warner, a former government minister, has denied the charges against him and has vowed to fight efforts by US authorities to have him extradited to the United States.
He is due to re-appear in court on July 9 after being granted TT$2.5 million (One TT dollar =US$0.16 cents) bail by Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar.
“What Mr. Warner was really doing was looking after Trinidad and trying to put Trinidad and Tobago in a position to have an equal chance,” said Tim Kee, the president of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA).
“He would have known of course (about) where he sat, how many things were available and how many were not. Everything came and happened and he was then replaced by another Caribbean man, Jeffrey Webb”.
Webb, who was also among Caribbean football officials arrested and charged, has since been fired as CONCACAF president.
