Acting Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister and ex-FIFA Vice President Jack Warner’s thoughts are likely to return to the football field today as his long-time colleague and former employee, Harold Taylor, lines up among four candidates to seek election to the post of Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president in Budapest, Hungary.
The CFU’s new executive will be selected today in its ordinary congress at the Boscolo Hotel in Budapest. Taylor will be challenged for the vacant post by Gordon Derrick, the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association general secretary, Ronald Jones, the Barbados Football Association (BFA) president and Luis Hernandez, Cuba Football Association (AFC) president.
The positions of first, second and third vice-presidents and executive member will also be contested today.
The Caribbean body was scheduled to select its officials last November in Jamaica but postponed the event. The CFU claimed to be unable to find any funds after Warner’s hasty exit last June, which was made in the face of FIFA bribery allegations.
Warner served as CFU general secretary from 1979 to 1981 and president for the next three decades until his controversial departure last year. He was also CONCACAF president for 20 years after being elected in 1991.
FIFA has allowed the CFU and CONCACAF to piggyback on its own congress, which will be held on May 24 and 25 at the same venue in Budapest, so as to conserve the limited funds of the respective football bodies.
CONCACAF will hold its congress tomorrow and Cayman Islands president Jeffrey Webb, as the only presidential candidate, will officially replace Warner at the helm.
The Caribbean holds 25 of CONCACAF’s 35 full members and today’s winner—granted that he can unite the region—will automatically become the most powerful football administrator in the confederation.
Warner has staked a lot on Taylor’s campaign.
On 7 May 2012, Wired868 exclusively revealed that the Minister of Works and Infrastructure wrote to Sport Minister Anil Roberts, on a State letterhead, and advised him to starve the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) of funding unless it could justify its reluctance to vote in accordance with his wishes. The TTFF subsequently nominated Taylor, who could not run without support from his local body.
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