The with­draw­al of FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam, the first per­son to mount a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to the or­gan­i­sa­tion's pres­i­dent, Sepp Blat­ter in al­most a decade, from the elec­tion race for the post to "clear his name," leaves CON­CA­CAF pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er in a cu­ri­ous po­si­tion. Bin Ham­mam's de­ci­sion might well have been moot, con­sid­er­ing the sus­pen­sion or­der hand­ed down by FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee while the pres­i­den­tial con­tender and Jack Warn­er, a man he de­scribed as "his good friend," are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed on charges of of­fer­ing US$40,000 bribes to mem­bers of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) for their votes in FI­FA's 2011 elec­tion.

It's now al­most a fore­gone con­clu­sion that Blat­ter will be re­turned to the FI­FA pres­i­den­cy for a fourth term un­op­posed while the two men, now linked through the ethics charges as his chal­lengers, will need to re­spond to the probe oc­ca­sioned by the re­port craft­ed by Chuck Blaz­er, the on­ly Amer­i­can serv­ing on the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee since 1996. The sus­pen­sion of the two ac­cused men from ac­tive du­ty is clear­ly the cor­rect course of ac­tion while they are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed on these al­le­ga­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when FI­FA's pro­bity as the gov­ern­ing body for foot­ball is com­ing un­der in­creas­ing scruti­ny.

This is not a time for FI­FA to pro­ceed as an or­gan­i­sa­tion with any­thing less than a close read­ing of its own rules of con­duct.

Since Oc­to­ber 2010, while FI­FA was man­ag­ing its se­lec­tion of the host na­tions for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup fi­nals, se­ri­ous ques­tions were be­ing raised about the meth­ods em­ployed to in­flu­ence the vot­ing process. Be­cause of those in­ves­ti­ga­tions, ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Rey­nald Temarii of the Ocea­nia Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion was sus­pend­ed from foot­ball re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty for three years and Nige­ria's Amos Adamu for one year. Both men con­tin­ue to protest their in­no­cence of the charges. Oth­er FI­FA of­fi­cials sus­pend­ed as part of that in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­clude Botswana's Is­mael Bham­jee (four-year sus­pen­sion), Mali's Amadou Di­akite and Ton­ga's Ahon­galu Fusimalo­hi (three years each) and Slim Aloulou of Tunisia (two years).

For UK foot­ball fans, it would be a bit­ter­sweet vic­to­ry, and the penal­ty for these ethics laps­es would pro­vide lit­tle salve for the hu­mil­i­a­tion of los­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to host the largest in­car­na­tion of the game that Eng­land gave to the world. Dur­ing that rash of ethics ac­cu­sa­tions, Warn­er brash­ly weath­ered the out­rage of Eng­lish jour­nal­ists, who cease­less­ly re­count­ed the sto­ries of his in­ter­ac­tions with the UK politi­cians and roy­al­ty who wooed his vot­ing bloc. Those ac­cu­sa­tions are hard­ly the on­ly ones lev­elled at the CON­CA­CAF Pres­i­dent who con­trols a large block of FI­FA votes in that role, but it re­mains to be seen whether Warn­er can emerge un­scathed from this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which ap­pears to have placed him in op­po­si­tion to long stand­ing sup­port­er Sepp Blat­ter.

In play from the point of view of foot­ball ob­servers is Jack Warn­er's po­si­tion as the pre-em­i­nent voice for foot­ball in this part of the hemi­sphere, but the foot­ball supre­mo's po­si­tion on the field goes be­yond the beau­ti­ful game and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be aware of the con­se­quences to Trinidad and To­ba­go of this lev­el of in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny of her Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port. When ques­tions were raised about Jack Warn­er's dual po­si­tions with FI­FA and the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, it was ar­gued by some that Warn­er's work with FI­FA would re­dound to the ben­e­fit of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Giv­en what has tran­spired over the last fort­night, that clear­ly is no longer a sus­tain­able ar­gu­ment.

At the press con­fer­ence in Zurich, Ethics Com­mit­tee Chair Petrus Damaseb an­nounced that there was a case for Warn­er and Bin Ham­mam to an­swer, that they were sus­pend­ed from foot­ball ac­tiv­i­ty un­til it was an­swered and that there were no grounds to stop the elec­tion next week. With bin Ham­mam off the slate, it seems that Blat­ter, cleared of any charges by the com­mit­tee, will be elect­ed by ac­cla­ma­tion.

But where will that leave Jack Warn­er? It won't be un­til June or Ju­ly that the fi­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion of FI­FA is ex­pect­ed to be con­clud­ed, but with Blat­ter claim­ing to be aware of the al­leged pay­ments to the CFU, the out­look looks grim for Warn­er.