NEW YORK CITY, New York (CMC) – Caribbean football mogul Jack Warner will take charge of CONCACAF for a sixth successive term after being nominated without opposition for the post of president. Warner, a powerful FIFA vice-president and a key ally of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, will be formally returned to power at the CONCACAF Congress scheduled for Florida on May 3.
CONCACAF is the continental governing body for football in North, Central American and the Caribbean and is a key voting bloc in FIFA, football’s world governing body.
“I am honoured by the trust placed in me by our members. I thank each one of them for allowing me to continue working on their behalf,” said Warner, who was first elected president in 1990.
“I remain honoured by all of this and I remain humble at the end of the day. While it is Jack Warner who has been re-elected, I repeat that it is the work of an entire team, an entire organisation that is responsible for our achievements and our day-to-day operations.
“I remain committed to the various tasks at hand and I will maintain my drive towards seeing us move forward in spite of whatever obstacles we may face along the way,” Warner added.
Three other members of the CONCACAF executive committee were also nominated unopposed – vice-presidents Lisle Austin of Barbados and Justino Compean, who is also the Mexican Football Federation president, and member Ariel Alvarado of Panama.
Last December, Warner was also nominated unopposed to serve as president of the Caribbean Football Union, the 30-member body that oversees Caribbean football.
The strengthening of Warner’s hold on CONCACAF will be seen as a boon to Blatter who is gearing up for a June re-election battle with challenger Asian soccer chief Mohamed Bin Hamman.