PORT-OF-SPAIN: Trinidad and Tobago’s Centre of Excellence, a football academy built with millions of dollars from FIFA, today hosts more weddings and conventions than matches, a symbol of the shady dealings of fallen executive Jack Warner.

The $22.5-million centre, which includes a stadium, a practice pitch, a swimming complex, a hotel and sprawling conference facilities, was supposed to train a new generation of footballers from around the Caribbean.

But somehow it ended up registered as belonging to Warner personally instead of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), whose presidency the Trinidadian politician held at the time.

And despite the giant football, complete with CONCACAF logo, that sits atop a pedestal near the entrance, the pastel-colored complex today does lots of non-football business -- allegedly for the personal profit of Warner, who is also a former FIFA vice president.

“The Centre of Excellence has blossomed into a multi-purpose facility capable of hosting a range of functions and events catering to individuals and companies including locals and tourists with added amenities for business travelers,” it boasts on its website.

“In fact, the complex has staged and hosted everything from large executive events such as seminars, symposiums and trade shows including weddings, graduations and parties.” The centre is named for former FIFA president Joao Havelange of Brazil, who agreed to help fund it before stepping down in 1998 after a 24-year reign that was, like that of his successor Sepp Blatter, overshadowed by scandal.

The complex boasts facilities such as a sprawling 5,000-capacity hall named for Blatter, who announced his resignation last week after US officials indicted Warner and eight other current or former FIFA officials in a sweeping investigation into corruption at world football’s governing body.

A smaller 140-capacity conference room is named for Nelson Mandela, who helped campaign for FIFA to name South Africa the 2010 World Cup host nation in a vote that US investigators now suspect was swayed by a $10 million bribe paid to Warner.

Ownership scandal

The scandal over the Centre of Excellence erupted in 2012, 13 years after it was inaugurated and one year after Warner was forced to resign from all posts in international football amid allegations he tried to buy Caribbean officials’ votes for a FIFA presidential election.

That year, CONCACAF lawyer John Collins caused an uproar at a meeting of the regional football body when he reported that the complex was registered to Warner.

“I am shell-shocked, dismayed and upset,” then-CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Islands — now also indicted in the US investigation — said at the time.

FIFA has sought to wrest ownership of the complex from Warner, but he has insisted it belongs to the Caribbean Football Union, which he also used to run.

The centre did not reply to requests for an interview.

Security guards there now shoo away journalists, as they have been doing at all properties in Trinidad and Tobago linked to Warner, a politically powerful lawmaker, since his arrest on May 29 at the request of US authorities.

An AFP correspondent managed to get as far as the lobby, where a large display case boasts lines of trophies, many of them awarded to Warner, before a security guard asked him to leave.

‘Badge of honoUr’

Lasana Liburd, a Trinidadian sports journalist who has followed Warner’s activities for two decades, said the centre is the “badge of honour” on the ex-football exec’s scandal-stained reign.

Intended as the training ground of the Caribbean’s football future, “it has for the most part been used for flea markets and political rallies and everything else,” said Liburd, the editor of sports site wired868.com.

“I am pretty sure it is the main money spinner for Warner right now,” he told AFP.

“It is a symbol of Caribbean football and Warner, in that something that could have been used for so much good and empowering the region in terms of sport instead was used for personal gain and profit.”

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2015

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