FIFA quietly fined VP Warner's son

Daryan Warner, son of FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, has been secretly fined GBP 490,000 by the organisation for touting World Cup tickets and was told that his family travel company is banned from selling the tickets.

Jack Warner set up the deals and the details were revealed exclusively in Sportsmail last September.

Wagner's Trinidad-based company Simpaul Travel obtained more than 5,400 tickets from FIFA and then sold them at huge mark-ups to tour operators in England, Japan and Mexico.

Warner diverted 1,700 additional tickets that were allocated to the Trinidad World Cup club to Simpaul and he was found guilty in early 2006 of breaching FIFA's ethics code.

Warner disposed of his Simpaul shares but Daryan continued as managing director of the company and passed hundreds of tickets on to scalpers during the World Cup.

Auditors Ernst & Young alleged that the Warners stood to make nearly GBP 490,000 in profit. The executive committee secretly imposed a fine that was equal to the projected profit and was to be donated to the SOS Children's Villages charity.

Sportsmail revealed that by the end of December 2006, "despite numerous FIFA reminders," only one fourth of the fine had been paid. The deadline for full payment is Thursday of next week.

The decision to impose the fine was oddly concealed. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said the organisation "disapproved" of Jack Warner's conduct and that he should not let Daryan "abuse the position held by his father" - and that the case was closed.

FIFA insiders feel no action will be taken if the fine remains unpaid because Jack Warner controls 35 of the 207 votes that Blatter needs for his re-election as president that will take place at the end of May.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.