Jack Warner, the former Fifa vice president, has apparently been taken in by a spoof article from the satirical website The Onion.
In a video on his Facebook page, Warner appears to hold up a printout of an Onion article headlined “FIFA Frantically Announces 2015 Summer World Cup In United States” and, in a rambling address to camera says: “Then I look to see that Fifa has frantically announced, 2015, this year […] the World Cup, beginning May 27. If Fifa is so bad, why is it that the USA wants to keep the Fifa World Cup?”
Warner – a Trinidad and Tobago politician who is facing extradition to the US after his arrest on corruption charges last week – goes on to talk about a “summer World Cup 2015”, adding: that this is “from the very same organisation that they are accusing of being corrupt, that has to be double standards on my part”.
In a sometimes confusing eight-minute statement Warner seems to offer a series of gifts to satirists, at one point thanking supporters for the “blank cheques” they have sent him, and also stating: “Nothing I have done within Fifa has been inconsistent with the international culture of Fifa.”
