• Suspended vice-president to consult lawyers
• Claims that computers were given as gifts
Jack Warner, the suspended Fifa vice-president, has threatened to blow the lid on corruption at Fifa and said that he will consult his lawyers about the legality of his suspension.
Warner, who told Sky that he would consult a Swiss judge about the legality of his ban, said: "I look on the suspension as the worst form of justice by a sporting organisation."
Earlier, Warner earlier unleashed his threatened "tsunami" of claims after he and the Asian confederation president, Mohamed Bin Hammam, were suspended by the Fifa ethics committee, pending the outcome of a full inquiry into allegations they paid officials $40,000 dollars each in bribes.
Warner claimed that the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, had made gifts of computers to officials plus an unauthorised $1m gift to the Concacaf federation, and that the Fifa secretary general, Jérôme Valcke, had suggested the 2022 World Cup, which will be played in Qatar, was "bought".
Warner said in a statement: "I indicated that at the Miami Concacaf Congress on 3 May Mr Blatter made a gift of $1m to Concacaf to spend as it deems fit. This annoyed [Uefa] president Michel Platini who was present and he approached secretary general Jérôme Valcke complaining that Mr Blatter had no permission from the finance committee to make this gift to which Jerome replied that he will find the money for Mr Blatter.
"I also indicated... Fifa through Mr Blatter organised gifts of laptops and projectors to all members of the Caribbean and no objections have been made ... to date." Warner said 13 federations had written to the ethics committee, backing him up.
Warner's apparent revelation of an email from Valcke about Bin Hammam running against Blatter for the Fifa presidency is potentially more explosive. Valcke, according to Warner's statement, wrote to him suggesting that the Qatari Bin Hammam had "bought" the 2022 World Cup for his country.
Warner said: "I wrote Valcke telling him, among other things, that the outcome of the elections may cause some fracture in the Arab world which we can ill afford now and that I will like to ask Bin Hammam to withdraw from the race. To which Jerome replied to me and I quote: 'For MBH [Bin Hammam], I never understood why he was running. If really he thought he had a chance or just being an extreme way to express how much he does not like anymore JSB [Blatter]. Or he thought you can buy Fifa as they bought the WC.'"
Bin Hammam has withdrawn from the Fifa presidential election. Valcke announced that the election, with Blatter as the only candidate, would take place as scheduled on Wednesday. Valcke defended Blatter's right to stand in the election but accepted the scandal was "a watershed moment" for Fifa.
He said: "I don't see what is wrong with this election with Mr Sepp Blatter. I think the most important thing is a commitment from all the members of the Fifa ExCo with the president to support a change within Fifa and in his last mandate make sure that Fifa is stronger and cleaner than it was. Maybe we can have the top guys around the world come to put things in place to stop that these things from happening again."
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/may/30/jack-warner-fifa-sepp-blatter
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