So where were we? Oh yes, our Caribbean overlords and how we're all just props in a game where they hold all the cards. I remember now.
Unfortunately, "Meet the New Boss" is perhaps the most overused rock-era catchphrase-cum-blog-title since "The Kids Are Alright" (what is it about Pete Townsend lyrics, anyway?), thereby robbing this post of it's obvious title.
However, one title we aren't likely to see anytime soon is "Happy Jack" since at the moment The Old Boss is "breaking his silence" every other day with spittle-flecked attacks on all his old pals, but that's mostly something that "I Can't Explain".
All of which is by way of introducing the new power in Caribbean football and, very likely, in CONCACAF as well:
Jeff Webb.
Webb, the President of the Cayman Islands Football Association since 1991 and also President of the largest bank in the Caymans, is a longtime Jack Warner loyalist.
As such, he has been rewarded with various positions on FIFA committees, primarily the all-important "Audit Committee", which is highly illustrative of the trust Sepp Blatter has in him:
Said committee was formed in 2002 as a response to Blatter's first big crisis, the ISL scandal. (That's always been Blatter's response: when cornered, form a committee. It's a sign of how frightened he is this year that he's formed four of them).
The Audit Committee was charged with overseeing all of FIFA's finances and reporting to the ExCo on any irregularities. Unfortunately for Sepp, the newly formed group, led by Scottish FA President David Will, started doing just that, immediately asking for an interview with FIFA Finance Director Urs Linsi and demanding access to Blatter's files.
So after less than a month, Blatter "suspended" the entire committee, pending a "reorganization", which amounted to stacking the committee with pliable and corrupt stooges.
Among the new members were Justino Jose Fernandes, the openly corrupt President of the Angola FA, and Jose Carlos Salim, a Brazil FA official who has been accused by the national legislature of demanding million dollar bribes in return for contracts and also of being the head of a $40 million money laundering scheme centered around football gate receipts.
FIFA vice-president Moon-Jung Chung from Korea, the Chairman of Hyundai Heavy Industries, found himself replaced as well, in his case by a Syrian Army General named Farouk Bouzo.
The fourth new member: CIFA President Jeffrey Webb. He's the Deputy Chairman.
Likewise, when Sepp Blatter was putting together his all-important "Transparency Committee" last month, guess who was prominently named?
Are you sensing a trend here? Jeff Webb is a loyal and trusted Sepp Blatter lickspittle, and he's reaping the rewards.
Which brings us to The Smartest Thing Jeff Webb Ever Did.
Back in May, at the big Mohammed Bin Hammam Cash Giveaway and Football Career Demolition Derby in Port of Spain, four federations refused to take the money: the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos, AND:
Jeff Webb's Cayman Island FA.
While I cannot verify it, I don't believe Webb was actually there. Like the Bahamas Anton Sealey and Bermuda's Larry Mussenden, I believe he was in Zurich attending meetings in preparation for the FIFA Congress.
Sealey and Mussenden both got phone calls from their substitutes, who were nervous about accepting the cash. I think Webb did too.
And as with Chuck Blazer when he got the call from Sealey, they all had to make quick career decisions, and they all made the same one.
Because the bottom line, that day and in the immediate aftermath when first John Collins and then Freeh & Associates were investigating, was that Warner made an enormous, gargantuan and still inexplicable miscalculation and he was going down for it.
The only open question was going to be who else is taking a hit.
Thus, when Sepp Blatter held his blatantly illegal and unconstitutional Caribbean Union "congress" just before Christmas, Horace Burrell, a guy who desperately wants to be Jack Warner II, had already disqualified himself.
(And here's a fun fact: Captain Horace Burrell of Jamaica is a very wealthy man due to the chain of "Captain's Bakery" restaurants he owns in Jamaica. There is, however, one "Captain's Bakery" not located in Jamaica: it's in the Cayman Islands, and it's co-owned with Jeff Webb.)
Burrell, who is also a longtime Blatter loyalist – it was his girlfriend du jour who cast a fraudulent ballot as the Haitian delegate at the 2002 Congress – was at the meeting and, although he took no money, he had sat there at the head table the next day as Warner told everyone to shut the hell up about the money.
And it was Burrell who, as acting CFU President, told the members not to cooperate with Freeh's people and ended up getting a six month suspension from the Ethics Committee.
So when Blatter was casting around for someone to appoint as the head of the CFU "Normalization Committee" and as the "observer" delegate for the Executive Committee and as one of the two "Just Pretend We're Not Here" members of the CONCACAF Executive Committee, it was reliable old Jeff Webb who got the nod.
Blatter needed someone squeaky clean, someone the media wouldn't roast him for, and Webb was his guy.
As for the future, CONCACAF still has no intention of holding elections before 2013, and it's unlikely FIFA can force them to do so.
For his part, Webb has already tossed his hat into the ring.
Saying that his primary concern now is helping the CFU ge back on it's feet, he nonetheless says he is:
"interested in the job of bringing some transparency back to CONCACAF which has been riven with divisions."
Sounding a lot like the politician that he clearly is, Webb says that "CONCACAF needs an overhaul" because "the North Americans" have too much influence.
Most of all, he is telling everyone that CONCACAF has to be restructured in order to "distribute its funding more equitably".
"I would like to see it assisting its members and sharing some of its revenues. I'd like to see more of that money helping some of the grassroots programmes in smaller countries, both in the Caribbean and central America."
New Boss, Old Boss, the name of the game is the same as it always was:
Use the voting power of the Caribbean feds to extract money from the rich and arrogant North Americans.
The only difference might be that Webb won't be able to steal every single dime, like Warner did.
This is "progress".
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