Soccer-Former FIFA watchdog member Watson jailed for seven years

By Simon Evans
MIAMI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - A former member of world soccer
body FIFA's financial watchdog has been sentenced to seven years
in prison in the Cayman Islands after being found guilty of
fraud, his lawyer said.
Canover Watson, who was a member of FIFA's Audit and
Compliance Committee, was found guilty of five charges related
to his time in charge of the Caribbean nation's Health Service
Authority (HSA), according to the Cayman Island's
Anti-Corruption Commission, which had led the investigation.
While the charges were not football-related, the verdict
against a man who served on a body which monitored FIFA's
finances is another blow to the image of the organisation
facing an unprecedented corruption crisis.
A statement from the Anti-Corruption Commission said the
45-year-old Watson was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy
to defraud, fraud on the government, conflict of interest and
breach of trust by a public official. He was found not guilty of
a money-laundering charge. None of the cases related to soccer.
Watson's attorney Ben Tonner confirmed local media reports
that his client had been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Watson was suspended from the FIFA watchdog in September
2014 pending the outcome of the case. He had also been treasurer
of the Cayman Islands Football Association and was a
vice-president of the Caribbean Football Union.
Another Cayman football official, Jeffrey Webb, a former
FIFA vice president and president of the CONCACAF, the
confederation covering North and Central America and the
Caribbean, has also been charged in the case but has yet to face
trial.
Webb is currently in the United States having pleaded guilty
to racketeering conspiracy, three counts of wire fraud
conspiracy and three counts of money laundering conspiracy as
part of the Department of Justice's investigation into FIFA
which has seen 41 individuals and entities indicted.
The Cayman Compass newspaper reported that Justice Michael
Mettyear told Watson during sentencing: "You behaved shamelessly
falsifying presentations, letters, emails, contracts and
signatures you fooled a number of senior civil servants and
possibly a minister."
Watson's senior defence counsel, Trevor Burke QC, said his
client had been "ruined".
"Canover Watson's fall from grace is now complete," the
newspaper said.