A CONCACAF executive testified in Grand Court Wednesday that sports equipment orders used to allegedly steal more than $1.5 million from the organisation were never supplied but, in any event, would not have met the requirements in terms of quality and price.
Jonathan Martinez, head of Professional Football Development at CONCACAF, had testified on Tuesday that an alleged fake invoice for the 2013 Gold Cup tournament paid by the football confederation contained an excessive quantity of 15,000 ushers’ vests.
The bill was one of three allegedly false invoices paid to a Panamanian company, Forward Sports International Management, which, the Crown says, was secretly owned by former Cayman and CONCACAF football executive Canover Watson.
While at CONCACAF, Watson set up a Panama-based distribution company, Forward Sports, together with Shakeel Khawaja, a representative for the Pakistan-based sports equipment maker, that received orders from the football governing body.
Watson is alleged to have set up a second Forward Sports company that he fully controlled, without the knowledge of Khawaja, Forward Sports in Pakistan or CONCACAF, that sent the invoices for which no goods were ever delivered.
Martinez told the jury that he was unable to track down any of the $1.54 million-worth of sports equipment ordered for the organisation’s grassroots football programmes for children.
The court was shown email communication between the CONCACAF executive and Forward Sports employee Juliet Osbourne trying to determine the status of the orders that had been placed.
In the emails, Osbourne told Martinez: In January 2014, that she was awaiting the timeline for production; in February, that the items were to be shipped shortly; and in March, that the first two containers, with 30,000 training vests as well as thousands of cones and sports bags, were en route from Pakistan.
When Martinez asked in March 2014 about the size of football goals that had been ordered and when they would arrive, Osbourne said the order did not contain goals.
When Martinez queried why, attaching both the invoice and the wire transfer information to the email, Osbourne told him the goals were indeed on order and would be delivered in July. She added that the order had been adjusted and reduced by CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb.
Asked by Eloise Marshall, QC, for the Crown whether he or CONCACAF ever received any goals at any time, Martinez said, “No. No goals, no cones, discs or agility ladders.”
Martinez testified that he was frustrated by the delays but said the organisation put in a further small equipment order for $16,000, “just to show that they could not deliver in time and the quality would be poor”.
Later in 2014, Forward Sports in Panama proposed another order for $2.3 million for a programme in Brazil for apparel, equipment and portable football goals.
CONCACAF’s then-Head of Development Hugo Salcedo intervened and in an email to Webb expressed his concern over the order, stating that the quality was very poor and not a reflection of CONCACAF’s programme or the direction in which the organisation was heading.
In addition, he had done a comparison between the quote by Forward Sports and similar products by Nike. CONCACAF had a vendor agreement with Nike on the competition side that provided similar items at wholesale cost and, in some cases, at half the price quoted by Forward Sports.
Forward Sports is well-known as a manufacturer of high-end footballs used in the 2014 and 2018 World Cup finals produced for Adidas. But CONCACAF said it was not satisfied with the cheaper goods and samples it reviewed.
Martinez described a meeting with Forward Sports’ Panama representative Shakeel Khawaja, who came to the confederation’s Miami office to present product samples and a catalogue of apparel saying it was better quality than Nike’s or that of other competitors.
“At times we literally laughed in his face. It looked like something from the 80s,” Martinez said. “It was funny, it was so bad.”
He said the organisation only ever received footballs from Forward Sports and used them in its grassroots programme.
“They didn’t roll straight, didn’t kick straight, some didn’t pump up,” Martinez said.
Cross-examination: ‘If you don’t have the full picture …’
When cross-examined by Dapinder Singh, QC, defence counsel for Watson, Martinez confirmed that Cayman Islands Anti-Corruption Commission investigators years later had shown him documents to review and comment on that he had not seen before.
Singh put to the witness that there were senior officials at the organisation, who would not necessarily share all information with him, for example in relation CONCACAF’s commercial activities.
Martinez said the confederation was a small organisation at the time, which meant everyone was privy to a lot of information, but not everything.
The defence counsel noted that senior managers had the ability to make ad hoc decisions, change orders, or, like Webb, use existing stock to give a “Christmas present” to every member organisation of CONCACAF in the form of hundreds of footballs.
CONCACAF’s development department was also separate from its competition department, Singh said.
The defence counsel pointed to differences between invoices, pro-forma invoices, order confirmations and shipping invoices relating to Forward Sports orders, which indicated that orders had been split into several shipments or altered later on.
“That would explain why you did not get football goals, wouldn’t it?” Singh said.
“If you don’t have the full picture, it is reasonable to assume that you can make errors and mistakes,” he added.
In reference to the order of 15,000 ushers’ vests for the 2013 Gold Cup event, Singh said, it was a tournament that attracted one million spectators across 15 stadiums and many people were working at the event that needed to be identified, including security guards, parking attendants, reporters and TV crews.
“You weren’t aware why these vests were required […] but someone else clearly was,” Singh said.
Martinez responded that security guards, vendors, and food servers had not been wearing CONCACAF material and that volunteers wore T-shirts with the word volunteer.
Martinez said he attended the event and watched the opening match, two group matches, a quarter final, a semi-final and the final across various cities in the US.
“I am 100% certain I did not see any CONCACAF vests,” he added.
Canover Watson has pleaded not guilty to receiving secret commissions, transferring criminal property and false accounting, while Bruce Blake has pleaded not guilty to money laundering-related and false accounting charges.
The trial continues Thursday.
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