CONCACAF drops legal action against hospitality firms
Jeff Webb in his heyday at CONCACAF
(CNS): As the corruption scandals plaguing the football world continue, the regional governing body CONCACAF has dropped its legal action against a group of hospitality companies that it had accused of defrauding the organisation and colluding with corrupt officials, including Cayman’s Jeffrey Webb. CONCACAF and Cartan Tours filed a motion Monday to dismiss the $50 million case that had been filed in California.
The Wall Street Journal reported that lawyers involved said the settlement between the parties “resolved everything” but no money changed hands. “The settlement will save CONCACAF millions of dollars and allow the Confederation to continue to move forward from the misconduct of past management to focus on football and governance reforms,” CONCACAF said.
The suit had stirred up further controversy here in the Cayman Islands because, in addition to Webb, Canover Watson and Bruce Blake, the acting president of the Cayman Islands Football Association, were implicated in the suit.
Blake had signed a loan agreement on behalf of CIFA with Cartan Tours, one of the defendants in the suit, after it had secured lucrative hospitality and entertainment contracts with CONCACAF. Although the “loan” later mysteriously turned into a “gift”, Blake has categorically denied any wrongdoing and said he had left the details of the financial arrangements to Watson, as he was CIFA treasurer at the time of the loan.
The suit made allegations that implied that both Watson and Webb were being given kickbacks from the hospitality business from CONCACAF, which was given to Cartan and other related companies.
Category: Caribbean, Crime, USA, World News
Does Blake have to give back the loan/donation that CIFA received as part of the deal?
Under US law a beneficiary or orchestrator of illegal activity cannot run a civil action for damages against someone who participated in it. Unless CONCACAF could demonstrate the organisation itself was completely removed form the illegal activity – bit difficult given the range of criminal charges against their management team – this one was bound to fail.
Things that make you go Huuuummmmmm!!!
Let me run this through my head out loud….
I find out that two former employees from my organisation arranged a deal that cost my organisation what, 50 million dollars? WOWZA. Now the two people are either in or heading for jail. One has pleaded guilty (AKA Webb) and the other has been found guilty and is now serving a 7 year sentence are most certainly guilty of something otherwise why you bring the suit if you don’t have something.
So here we are now. What did you do? You dropped a 50 million dollar suit!!! An out of court settlement? No money exchanging hands!!! Where d heck is the 50 million dollars? And…..you say what? You going to SAVE millions. Okay that is all good and well but why no case to get the 50 million?
Kids, something here smells really bad. Did we uncover something even Concacaf wants buried in all of this?
Let me put this another way…..Would you, if you found someone stole from you, drop a case for 50 million dollars, especially when the two people who brokered the deal are guilty of fraudulent activity according to them and the courts?
People 50 million is 50 million. It’s not 50 cents or 50 dollars or even 50 thousand dollars. This is 50 million dollars. That could build our Center for Excellence like 10 to 20 times over. Who drops a 50 million dollar suit for no money?
FIFA….CONCACAF……you smell!!!
it won’t be long before our local association and official take advantage of this and claim victory. Dropping this legal action simple means that the officials currently running CONCACAF, which for the most part are very much of the problem do not want to dig deeper to find their names popping up. Same will happen here with CIFA unless there are legal charges brought locally.
New article gives an historical perspective. Interesting about Blazer’s Cayman bank accounts. http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/14767250/the-exclusive-story-how-feds-took-fifa
Basically, CONCACAF realised this was a can of worms they really couldn’t afford to open.
CONCACAF mules. Did you ever stop to think that CONCACAF itself is a scam. They trained all of them to be their slaves. Too bad our little islander boy thought that he was doing something great when they elected him as president. They are not real, too bad Cayman Islands is wrapped up with it. What Jeff Webb and all the others were doing was nothing more than kick backs for concacaf herself. They were concacaf mules. CONCACAF has now governing body. They are all to their self. Yet they start up all these committees . What a joke.
CONCACAF herself is corruption, how should she expect to recover bribes money . The reform rubbish is just to fool the nations so that they can get big sponsors that will give away Rolex watches. Those guys all gets free Rolex watches ever World Cup . Don’t fool yourself to think Jeff Webb bought his
Surprise, surprise. After embracing new reforms to try to save itself CONCACAF will let all bygones be bygones and not go after any previous officials or companies suspected of corruption to try to recoup some of the funds. I wonder why? Any suggestions?
Too many dirty faces and filthy hands mingled in the m o n e y.