Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

For­mer FI­FA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er says there is noth­ing scan­dalous about a de­ci­sion by FI­FA ex­ec­u­tives to end a mul­ti-mil­lion-ster­ling 2014 World Cup TV deal in­volv­ing a com­pa­ny owned by him. Warn­er was speak­ing to re­porters af­ter tour­ing a site at Her­mitage, ear­marked to re­lo­cate res­i­dents af­fect­ed by the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way. Asked to com­ment on the ter­mi­na­tion of the con­tract, Warn­er said:"I have told you be­fore, there is a time when you talk and a time to keep qui­et. My time to keep qui­et is still on. My time to talk has not yet come. "All I will tell you is this thing they said to­day, if I was not a big man, I would have laughed it to scorn but I will not do that. "So for the time be­ing let them have their pa­rade, I will have mine lat­er on. Don't let your heart be trou­bled."

Asked how the scan­dal had af­fect­ed him, Warn­er said: "That is not a scan­dal. What is scan­dalous about that? One com­pa­ny is­sued a con­tract to an­oth­er com­pa­ny and it is a scan­dal? "Over the past 30 years, I will give you a dozen such arrange­ments that have been made. Noth­ing is scan­dalous about it. "You think this has hap­pened just overnight? Don't make such judg­ments that you don't know noth­ing about.

"The trou­ble in Trinidad is you make val­ued judg­ments based on ig­no­rance. Don't do that. Don't let peo­ple fool you. Over time this thing shall be ex­posed."

FI­FA end­ed the mul­ti-mil­lion ster­ling con­tract af­ter dis­cov­er­ing the rights had been sub-li­censed to a com­pa­ny owned by Warn­er. The agree­ment with the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) has been end­ed af­ter FI­FA told the or­gan­i­sa­tion they had not ap­proved the sub-li­cens­ing deal with JD In­ter­na­tion­al (JDI), owned by the for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent, Warn­er. Warn­er, who at that time was al­so the CFU's pres­i­dent, sold the rights to the Ja­maica-based ca­ble TV sta­tion, Sports­Max, in 2007, for a fee re­port­ed to be be­tween $18 mil­lion and $20 mil­lion, though that in­clud­ed the 2010 World Cup.

Mean­while, on the is­sue of the re­lo­ca­tion, Warn­er al­so said the pro­posed site at Her­mitage would fa­cil­i­tate more than 300 dis­placed res­i­dents. He said a meet­ing was held yes­ter­day and sev­er­al of­fi­cials from the var­i­ous com­mit­tees want­ed to see where the pro­posed site was lo­cat­ed. Warn­er said sev­er­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the HDC, would lend ex­per­tise to­wards de­vel­op­ment of the site. He could not say for cer­tain whether HDC would con­struct the hous­es. Ju­nior Works Min­is­ter Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine said the Gov­ern­ment had un­til March 2012 to re­lo­cate all the af­fect­ed res­i­dents.