JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

CONCACAF suspends Austin

by

20110604

CON­CA­CAF has sus­pend­ed act­ing pres­i­dent Lisle Austin for al­leged rule vi­o­la­tions, draw­ing an an­gry re­sponse from Austin who claimed yes­ter­day the ac­tion was "il­le­gal." Austin took con­trol of the fed­er­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing North and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean af­ter long­time leader, Jack Warn­er was sus­pend­ed on Sun­day by world foot­ball's gov­ern­ing body over bribery al­le­ga­tions along with fel­low FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam.

The cor­rup­tion claims were re­port­ed to FI­FA by CON­CA­CAF sec­re­tary gen­er­al Chuck Blaz­er, who Austin tried to re­move from the po­si­tion in re­tal­i­a­tion for turn­ing on Warn­er. CON­CA­CAF's ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee quick­ly re­ject­ed Austin's move, rul­ing that he lacked the pow­er to fire Blaz­er. "Lisle Austin has been pro­vi­sion­al­ly banned from all foot­ball ac­tiv­i­ties with­in CON­CA­CAF and at the na­tion­al lev­el by a ma­jor­i­ty of the CON­CA­CAF Ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee mem­bers for ap­par­ent in­fringe­ment of the CON­CA­CAF statutes," the New York-based gov­ern­ing body said in a state­ment.

"No­tice of this sus­pen­sion is be­ing sent to FI­FA to be ex­tend­ed world­wide." CON­CA­CAF is al­so ask­ing FI­FA to ex­tend Austin's sus­pen­sion to foot­ball du­ties world­wide un­til his full hear­ing Ju­ly 13. Vice pres­i­dent Al­fre­do Haw­it has been ap­point­ed CON­CA­CAF's act­ing pres­i­dent. "We are clear­ly pass­ing through a dif­fi­cult time," Haw­it said in a state­ment re­leased by CON­CA­CAF. "How­ev­er, I stead­fast­ly be­lieve that CON­CA­CAF will over­come these chal­lenges and reach even greater heights."

How­ev­er, Austin claimed that any­one deal­ing with the Hon­duran would be "im­pli­cat­ing them­selves in­to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties." A state­ment from Austin's of­fice in the Caribbean in­sist­ed that the ac­tions tak­en in New York and an­nounced by the of­fi­cial CON­CA­CAF me­dia de­part­ment were "il­le­gal" and con­tra­vene sev­er­al rules. It said on­ly Austin has the pow­er to chair meet­ings of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee.

"It nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­lows that if the pres­i­dent did not con­vene or did not chair any meet­ing of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee that any ac­tions tak­en or de­ci­sions reached at said meet­ing are not on­ly un­en­force­able but are ul­tra vires (in­valid)," the state­ment said. Austin said his CON­CA­CAF col­leagues de­nied him a hear­ing to de­fend him­self.

"Mr Austin is both shocked and dis­heart­ened that the on­line pub­li­ca­tions of the Con­fed­er­a­tion are once again be­ing em­ployed to wage a war against the of­fice of the act­ing pres­i­dent, a war in which on­ly the Con­fed­er­a­tion and its mem­bers will con­tin­ue to suf­fer," the state­ment from the Bar­ba­dos-na­tive's of­fice said. The pro­vi­sion­al ban ap­plies to Austin's ac­tiv­i­ties with CON­CA­CAF and in his na­tive Bar­ba­dos.

Be­fore his sus­pen­sion, Austin tried to sev­er CON­CA­CAF's re­la­tion­ship with John P Collins, a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor who in­ves­ti­gat­ed Blaz­er's al­le­ga­tions and pre­pared the re­port for FI­FA. Collins rep­re­sents CON­CA­CAF, and al­so sits on FI­FA's le­gal com­mit­tee. Collins' sig­na­ture is on the no­tice of Austin's sus­pen­sion. The an­nounce­ment comes one day be­fore the start of the Gold Cup, CON­CA­CAF's pre­mier event.

The tour­na­ment is be­ing played in 13 cities across the Unit­ed States, and the win­ner will earn a spot in the 2013 Con­fed­er­a­tions Cup. Warn­er and bin Ham­mam were sus­pend­ed by FI­FA af­ter Blaz­er ac­cused them of of­fer­ing Caribbean of­fi­cials $40,000 each in ex­change for their votes in last Wednes­day's pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Bin Ham­mam had been the on­ly chal­lenger to Sepp Blat­ter, who was elect­ed un­op­posed to a fourth term.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored