By David Owen
May 4 – FIFA President Joseph Blatter has sent a message of support to Jack Warner, in the wake of allegations he is waging a covert campaign to evict the CONCACAF President from world football’s governing body.
In a characteristically effusive message, seen by insideworldfootball, which is understood to have been circulated to other FIFA bosses, Blatter wrote: “For Jack Austin Warner and Joseph S. Blatter to be separated, something more is necessary than [the allegations of] an obsessed ‘journalist’.
“It would require more than an iceberg, a volcano or an earthquake…
“It would need a miracle for that to happen!
“But since all miracles have been proven to be positive, that won’t happen either.”
His initiative followed a report in a newspaper in Warner’s native Trinidad and Tobago headlined, “FIFA wants Warner out”.
The report, in the Newsday newspaper, quoted a statement by Andrew Jennings, the British investigative journalist, reading as follows: “It seems Blatter’s covert campaign to evict Jack Warner from FIFA is getting under the skin of the UNC chairman.
“Blatter is a subtle operator and his deftly managed campaign to give global publicity to my presentation at the Ritz-Carlton in Miami to an audience of US government investigators and prosecutors, is rightly worrying Mr Warner.”
The report comes at a sensitive time, with Warner having recently temporarily stepped away from his international football commitments because of this month’s national election in Trinidad and Tobago, where he is chairman of the opposition United National Congress (UNC) party.
As reported by insideworldfootball, Warner recently accused Jennings, with whom he has had a stormy relationship, of being part of a government plot to smear his name ahead of the May 24 election.
Jennings, who has denied Warner’s allegations, is scheduled to speak today at the annual OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence conference in Miami.
Contact the writer of this story at zib.l1734912356labto1734912356ofdlr1734912356owedi1734912356sni@n1734912356ewo.d1734912356ivad1734912356
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