Warner banned from football for life by FIFA

Matthew Stead
Jack Warner (l): Has been handed a lifetime ban from any football-related activity by FIFA

Jack Warner (l): Has been handed a lifetime ban from any football-related activity by FIFA

FIFA’s ethics committee has banned former vice-president Jack Warner from taking part in any football-related activity at any level for life.

Disgraced former vice-president and CONCACAF chief Warner has been described as a “key player” involved in illegal payments by FIFA’s ethics committee.

Warner, who is fighting extradiction from Trinidad to the USA on corruption charges, resigned from FIFA in 2011 following a bribery scandal and has not been involved since then.

FIFA’s ethics committee opened an investigation into Warner earlier this year and has now banned him for life from football-related activities.

A statement from the ethics committee said: “Mr Warner was found to have committed many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF.

“In his positions as a football official, he was a key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance, and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments, as well as other money-making schemes.”

The decision was taken on the basis of investigations carried out by the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee following its report on the inquiry into the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup bidding process.

The chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, Dr Cornel Borbely, who took over the chairmanship from his predecessor in late December 2014, immediately opened the investigation into Warner’s activities in January 2015.

The ban is effective from September 25, 2015, the date on which the present decision was notified.