FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has
renewed his attack on BBC Panorama’s investigation into World Cup bidding by
claiming the programme could have an adverse effect for England’s 2018 World
Cup bid.
Panorama are planning to screen a
programme on Monday, three days before the vote in Zurich, and have written to
Warner as well as FIFA president Sepp Blatter asking for responses to a number
of allegations but Warner insisted he was not worried about the contents of the
investigation.
Warner told Trinidad newspaper
Newsday: “I haven’t yet made up my mind how I’m voting, but the BBC, I’m
totally dismissive of the BBC.”
Asked whether Panorama could
negatively affect the vote for England, he said: “I believe it might. I don’t
know really how much it would do that but I would imagine there must be some
negative fall-out, how much I really don’t know.
“I don’t want to dignify the
foolishness by the BBC and what they want to show. If the BBC want to show
anything, they could show it, what more could the BBC say about me?”
England face competition from
Russia, Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium. They are so desperate to win the
vote that British Prime Minister David Cameron telephoned Warner two weeks ago
to invite him to lunch in London. Warner’s support is perhaps the most crucial
for England to capture and that is reflected by Cameron’s lunch invitation
ahead of the vote on Thursday.
England also tried to
woo Warner by playing a friendly international in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad two
years ago.
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