These Caribbean Soccer Officials Are Taking FIFA To Court

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. April 9, 2020: Soccer officials in one Caribbean island are taking FIFA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday appealed a decision by FIFA to oust them from their post and the local association less than four months after winning an election against a candidate who supported the world body.

The latest turmoil in Trinidad and Tobago soccer follows days after more detail of alleged bribes-taking by its long-time leader Jack Warner was published by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Warner was banned for life by FIFA in 2015, after being indicted in the United States for alleged financial corruption including taking bribes in World Cup hosting votes. He has since been fighting extradition to the U.S.

A FIFA panel chaired by its president Gianni Infantino removed T&T soccer President William Wallace and other senior officials on March 17, citing “extremely low overall financial management methods, combined with a massive debt.”

Wallace had been in office since November, after winning a vote of local soccer officials against David John-Williams, who served a single four-year term.

A 69-page indictment, which was unsealed on Monday in Brooklyn, said T&T’s soccer official Jack Warner, who was also the former CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president, received over $5 million in bribes from Russia to vote for hosting duties in 2018. The indictment alleges that Warner received an email from an associate of one of the co-conspirators who is not named, with the following message: “What is agreed is what is being done this week.”

Warner then received $5 million via more than 20 wire transfers from November 2010 to April 2011 to an account at Republic Bank in Trinidad and Tobago, per the indictment.