SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er wants Sir David Sim­mons to ask Dr Joao Have­lange, the for­mer Fi­fa pres­i­dent, why he gave him (Warn­er) the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence at Ma­coya.Warn­er said he al­so plans to ad­dress Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his "band­wag­on" of de­trac­tors on this is­sue on Fri­day in the Low­er House. He urged na­tion­als to get a front row seat when Row­ley rais­es a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against him.

Warn­er was speak­ing with the me­dia, yes­ter­day, at his Ch­agua­nas West Con­stituen­cy Of­fice at Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, where he was at­tend­ing to more than 200 peo­ple who came from var­i­ous parts of T&T seek­ing his as­sis­tance.On Fri­day, Warn­er dis­missed the find­ings of a Con­ca­caf probe in­to his tenure at the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Warn­er said the find­ings were base­less and ma­li­cious.

The al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er were pre­sent­ed by Sim­mons at a Con­ca­caf con­gress in Pana­ma on Fri­day. The re­port found Warn­er did not dis­close to Con­ca­caf, which rep­re­sents soc­cer in North and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, that the US$25.9 mil­lion Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya was built on lands owned by his com­pa­nies.

Warn­er added: "Blaz­ing head­lines, sen­sa­tion­al­ism at its best, but at the end of the day, you have to ask what are the facts? What were the con­di­tions un­der which Have­lange gave this gift to me in 1996?""Why haven't they asked him? How come they have a re­port from an em­i­nent ju­rist like Sim­mons and they haven't spo­ken to Have­lange once?"Have­lange is alive, he is sane, he is of sound mind and judg­ment, why hasn't Sim­mons spo­ken to Have­lange once?"

Click to down­load­The Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and CaribbeanAs­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball (Con­ca­caf) In­tegri­ty Com­mit­tee re­port.