Soccerstoriesbook's Blog

Jack Warner of Trinidad & Tobago, running unopposed, was re-elected unanimously as president of CONCACAF at the regional confederation’s congress in Miami.

Warner, a FIFA vice president and, since 1983, a FIFA Executive Committee member, won his sixth four-year term as CONCACAF supremo.

Junstino Compean, the Mexican Football Federation chief, and Lisle Austin of Barbados were elected vice presidents.  Both ran unopposed.  [May 3]

Comment:  So it’s four more years of the slippery Warner, a man whose transgessions have been well documented. 

Warner’s first great feat came in November 1989, when, as Trinidad & Tobago soccer boss, he had thousands of bogus tickets printed for the World Cup qualifying showdown between T&T and the U.S. in Port of Spain, a game in which Warner’s “Strike Force” needed only a tie to earn a berth in Italia ’90.  T&T lost, of course, on Paul Caligiuri’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” but Warner was on his way.  Already president of the Caribbean Football Union, he won his first term as CONCACAF president the following year.  He has since amassed a fortune estimated at between $20 million and $40 million based solely upon his ostensibly valuable skills as a soccer administrator. 

Warner’s re-election extends a proud tradition in CONCACAF, which will mark its 50th anniversary this year.  For 22 years the North/Central American and Caribbean region was under the dictatorial rule of Warner’s predecessor, Joaquin Soria Terrazas.  For many of those years CONCACAF was headquartered in Guatemala City, which, at the time, had no international airport.  (Warner, to his credit, lifted his kingdom’s profile considerably by moving its offices to Trump Tower in New York.)

Don’t look for Warner to go away any time soon.  CONCACAF has 40 member nations, fully three quarters of them part of the CFU.  As long as Warner looks after them, his reign will be everlasting.