Read through the list of recently arrested, indicted, charged and sometimes simply mentioned officials in the FIFA meltdown and one name is bound to appear at least once. Jack Warner, of Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the central figures in the saga. Good mates with Chuck Blazer, the man who had a Trump Tower apartment just for his cats, Warner has been swindling his way through soccer administrations echelons since the 1960s.

Warner is a qualified school teacher and his career started off modestly when in 1966, he became General Secretary of the Central Football Association. It took almost 20 years before he would become vice-president of CONCACAF and joined the FIFA Executive committee and nearly another 30 before his chickens would come home to roost while he was vice-president of FIFA.

Warner, like so many others in this cesspit of corruption, does not court neutral opinions. Feelings towards him swing from one extreme to the next, with loyal supporters either coming out swinging for him while detractors scowl and bestow scorn. But Jack isn’t the only one in his family to have been dragged into this sordid tale. His two sons, Daryan and Daryll Warner – both in their 40s – have pleaded guilty to a number of charges and have offered their cooperation to the authorities.

For some time now, Jack Warner has seemed to attract controversy like the sun pulls the earth. In 2006, when Trinidad & Tobago took part in the World Cup, the players were involved in a bonus dispute and accused players of “holding a country ransom because of greed”. The Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) said that they had a post-tournament revenue of TT$18.25 million with costs of TT$17.9 million. They offered the players a bonus of TT$5,644.08 per player. Later it was revealed that TTFF had received over TT$173 million for their part in the tournament in Germany.

This incident of being somewhat economical with the truth would seem minor compared to what was to come. From black market ticket sales to siphoning money for personal use from the so-called “Diaspora Legacy Programme” and now allegedly diverting funds intended for Haiti earthquake victims, Warner’s seeming inability to do the right thing is beyond comprehension. Through all of these accusations, Warner has held firm that he has not done anything wrong. When Andrew Jennings, the reporter who started investigating FIFA long before the Feds, had asked Warner about selling 2006 World Cup tickets at inflated prices, Warner responded through insults. “No foreigner, particularly a white foreigner, will come to my country and harass me,” Warner had said that time.

Still, Warner maintains that he has not done anything wrong and has insisted that there is an “avalanche” of revelations still to come, including linking FIFA to Trinidad’s 2010 general election and that he has helped political leaders financially with his personal funds.

But while Daddy Jack’s story on its own is enough to make your hair stand on end, the thickest part of this plot is his relationship with his sons. Did they turn on their own father or did they agree to take the fall for him when they pleaded guilty? Were his intensions paternal in some obscure way? Is the fact that he ensured that they are financially taken care of through his connections and schemes evidence of his care for his sons? Or is the whole family as rotten as each other?

The answer might be found in report dating back to 2012. The oldest of Warner’s two sons, Daryan, was apparently approached by customs officials while trying to leave Port of Spain around November 2012. He was waiting to go to Miami, where he is a resident and was carrying US$100,000 in a bag. He had not declared the cash. When approach, he quickly made a call to a “government minister” (Warner was in government at the time and in charge of T&T customs). Daryan was let go. Or so the story goes. It never actually made the news aside from a small story in one of the Trinidad papers mentioning the “son of unnamed official”.

When he arrived at Miami, he was approached by US officials and questioned. The rumour in Trinidad went around that he was placed under house arrest, but he denied this. However, he failed to state whether he was being investigated at the time. This happened in March 2013, the same year where he would secretly plead guilty to a number of charges which have since been made public. Little is known about Daryll, but the two lived together in Miami and both started co-operating with the authorities in 2013. It would seem that this time, they were in a hole that Daddy Dearest could not dig them out of.

Keep an eye on this one, because as the FIFA meltdown continues, the tale of these family values is only going to get more intriguing. DM

Photo: A file picture dated 27 May 2015 of former FIFA vice president Jack Warner leaving the office of the Sunshine Newspaper which he owns in Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago. Jack Warner said in an extraordinary television appearance that he will reveal all he knows about corruption at FIFA and claimed that he will prove a link between world football’s governbing body and the national elections in his native Trinidad and Tobago, media reports stated on 04 June 2015. EPA/ALVA VIARRUEL