Indicted former FIFA executive Jack Warner has spoken out in a lengthy video posted to Facebook defending himself and thanking those who have supported him since his surrender to police in Trinidad & Tobago.
“This past week has been a most trying one for me, a most difficult one,” Warner said. “To have had these charges levied at me without any question of any kind on me left me totally surprised.”
Warner continues to thank those who have supported him on social media as well as his family, and went on to describe how little he is in the FIFA ranks as evidence that he is innocent. “How is it that FIFA is 100 years old, I entered FIFA when it was 70 years old, I left FIFA four years ago, I am the youngest person in the smallest country ever in the world that reached that far in FIFA. How is it that I can be responsible for any perceived culture of FIFA? How is it that the whole world expects me to have the influence to change a World Cup bid?”
“How is it that Jack Warner is now everybody’s whipping boy?” As a former FIFA vice president and CONCACAF president, he’s not the minnow he claims to be.
But the crowning moment of this video is Jack Warner’s utterly embarrassing moment where he used some terribly inaccurate evidence to put the United States to the sword, showing just how incapable of defending himself he may be.
“If FIFA is so bad, why is it the USA wants to keep the World Cup?” Warner asks, holding up an article and pointing to it. “Why is it USA authorities sought to embarrass FIFA in this way? Something has to be wrong.”
Well, Jack, something is wrong. The article he held up and cited is one titled “FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup In United States” and is written by The Onion, a fake news network that uses satire and outright incorrect claims to produce humorous articles for readers who knowingly understand the articles are untrue.
The video has since been deleted from Warner’s personal website and from his Facebook page, but nothing is ever truly deleted from the internet, and it was uploaded to YouTube:
Jack Warner video
“I could understand the U.S. embarrassment that a small country as Qatar with less than 30,000 residents, could have been able to overcome them [for the 2022 World Cup],” Warner continued after citing the fake article as evidence of a double standard. “But no one gives them the right to do what they are doing. No one country has any divine right to host a World Cup, and if the FIFA authorities in their wisdom, or lack of it, chose to select Qatar for the World Cup, then so be it. Take your losses and go.”
Oh dear, Jack. Might want to cut your losses and go.
