FIFA vice-president denies fee allegations

A vice-president of football’s world governing body FIFA asked for the fee for an international friendly to be paid into his personal bank account, the former head of the Scottish FA alleged tonight.

John McBeth, who retired as Scottish FA president in May, told the BBC TV programme Panorama that Jack Warner asked for the fee for Trinidad and Tobago’s friendly match in Edinburgh in May 2004 to be paid directly to him.

Warner insists the claims are “a patent lie”.

McBeth said on the programme: “There are one or two people on that [FIFA] executive committee that I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.

“Trinidad and Tobago came to play Scotland at Hibernian’s ground in Easter Road in Edinburgh. And after the game he asked me to make a cheque out to his personal account for the game.

“And I said ’We don’t do that, it should go to the association’.

“I then found out later that he’d approached several other staff in my organisation... to do exactly the same thing.”

McBeth and Warner have clashed in the past – McBeth was to be the four home nations’ British FIFA vice-president but was dropped in May after he made comments implying African and Caribbean nations were tainted by corruption and greed.

Warner, the president of the CONCACAF federation of countries from north and central America and the Caribbean, made an official complaint to FIFA saying the comments “smacked of racism”.

McBeth told Panorama: “I was talking about the football people that I’ve met and dealt with in Africa and the Caribbean. It was football people I was talking about. I wasn’t talking about the nation.

“I’m not a racist bigot and I think it probably says more about Jack and him trying to deflect away the criticism that I was making of corruption.”

Warner rejected the allegations. He told PA Sport: “The statement is a patent lie issued by someone whom I got removed from the FIFA executive committee and whose memory has suddenly come to life.”

Meanwhile, Sebastian Coe has defended his role as head of FIFA’s watchdog body and insisted he is not merely a figurehead.

Lord Coe is chairman of FIFA’s ethics committee and Panorama claim there are a number of cases he should be investigating.

Panorama say they are “examining whether England can expect ’fair play’ from FIFA” in bidding for the 2018 World Cup and the conduct of FIFA officials following the US court case between the organisation and MasterCard that ended with FIFA paying a £45million settlement.

Coe, a Chelsea season ticket holder and chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organising committee, said: “The committee takes its role very seriously. And I will never be just a figurehead. I want to make a difference.

“The FIFA role was something I was asked to do and anybody who knows me, knows I’ve been watching football regularly for 40 years and I think there’s a job to be done there. But it won’t happen overnight.

“It’s taken a good chunk of the last year to make sure we’re in a position to operate in an independent and sensible way.”