Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Trinidad official escapes sanction over World Cup tickets
12-07-2006

ZURICH, Switzerland (AFP): FIFA's executive committee on Wednesday reprimanded its vice-president Jack Warner, but decided not to impose any sanctions following the illicit resale of tickets at the 2006 World Cup.

FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, said the committee had decided to follow the recommendations of its independent disciplinary body and "express disapproval" at Warner's conduct.

"Jack Warner should in particular ensure that his son, Daryan Warner, does not abuse the position held by his father," FIFA said in a statement.

Warner, from Trinidad and Tobago and president of the Caribbean and North and Central American Federation since 1990, is a member of the executive committee.

He and his son were accused of making money through the illegal sales in an auditor's report commissioned in January.

The report by auditing firm Ernst and Young, said Warner's son Daryan made about 730,000 euros (927,000 dollars) from resale of tickets through his travel agency. Resales were illegal under FIFA contracts.

FIFA Disciplinary Committee chief, Marcel Mathier, indicated that his legal body's advice was largely determined by a lack of evidence.

"No breach of ticketing directives can objectively be proven and therefore it cannot be proven that Jack Warner knew about the resale of tickets at higher prices," Mathier told a news conference.

"However, from a subjective point of view, we can question whether or not Jack Warner knew about his son's activities in relation to ticketing," he added, in an unusual public appearance by the normally discrete disciplinary chief.

Mathier underlined that Warner's son, Daryan, was at the centre of the ticketing sales but could not face punishment because he was not under the jurisdiction of world football's governing body.

"The question of an eventual judicial follow-up remains open on this point," Mathier told journalists.

However, Blatter did not say that the ruling executive committee had taken up that recommendation.

Daryan Warner has paid 250,000 dollars to charity supported by FIFA, Blatter said.

Warner, an executive committee member since 1983, was a close ally of Blatter's at FIFA over more than a decade, publicly supporting the Swiss FIFA chief's initial election to president in 1998 and his subsequent re-election.

About 5,000 tickets were thought to be involved, according to media reports, but FIFA has not confirmed the number.

Daryan Warner runs a travel agency in Trinidad and Tobago and was given the sole rights to sell the ticket allocation set aside for the Caribbean island nation, which had qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2006.

Warner had "interests" in the travel agency, Simpaul, until he severed his formal ties after FIFA's executive committee asked him to do so in March, according to FIFA offcials.