Fresh questions about World Cup bid Former CONCACAF president Jack Warner. Former top FIFA official Jack Warner allegedly stole a $462,000 donation the Football Federation of Australia donated to his Caribbean football organisation in 2010, at a time when the FFA was lobbying Mr Warner to back its bid to host the World Cup. The former FIFA vice president, Mr Warner has resigned as Trinidad and Tobago's national security minister, two days after an investigation accused him of "fraudulent" management of the CONCACAF soccer confederation. The finding that Mr Warner stole the money - made over the weekend by an integrity panel headed by several former judges - raises fresh questions about the FFA's decision to give lucrative grants in 2010 to soccer organisations headed by influential FIFA officials previously accused of corruption. The existence of the $462,000 donation- and its subsequent alleged theft - has never been reported publicly in Australia, including in the FFA and government inquiries into Australia's failed $45 million bid. The FFA has long maintained that all its spending in the lead up to the World Cup was done with appropriate due diligence, despite concerns raised by the FFA's former corporate affairs manager Bonita Merciades about the risks of giving "international development" grants to corruption-riddled overseas football bodies. When the FFA gave the $462,000 stadium development donation to the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Football, it was headed by Mr Warner, who had previously been accused of corruption. Mr Warner denies any wrongdoing. In 2010, Fairfax Media revealed that the FFA gave a pearl necklace to the wives of top FIFA officials, including Mr Warner, spent tens of thousands of dollars flying a junior Caribbean football team to a match and paid more than $1 million to consultant, Peter Hargitay, who claimed privately to be able to deliver Mr Warner's vote to the FFA. The inquiry by the CONCACAF integrity committee found that in 2010, the FFA deposited $462,200 in a Caribbean bank account after meeting with Mr Warner and agreeing to donate to the development of a stadium in Trinidad and Tobago. The inquiry said the account was controlled by Mr Warner, who appears to have later pocketed the FFA's funds. "The funds were paid to CONCACAF by FFA in the form of a check made out to "CONCACAF" which was deposited into a bank account maintained at Republic National Bank in Trinidad and Tobago, an account in which, earlier that year, Warner had deposited personal reimbursement funds from CONCACAF. "Given the history of Warner's conduct, his failure to report this payment as income, and the general lack of accountability of funds sent to CONCACAF operations in Trinidad and Tobago, the Committee concludes that Warner misappropriated these funds," the inquiry found. The inquiry was headed by former US federal court judge Ricardo Urbina and former chief justice of the Barbados Sir David Simmons. The FFA's doomed World Cup bid campaign, which secured only a single vote from the 24 member FIFA executive, was overseen by Ben Buckley, who has since left the FFA. In a statement, the FFA's head of corporate affairs, Kyle Patterson, said the FFA assisted the investigation into Mr Warner's handling of money and had on Monday written to CONCACAF to explore what steps it would take next. This funding related to the mandatory FIFA World Cup bidding criteria. FFA was required to demonstrate its credentials in the area of international development. The funding of preliminary design and feasibility works for a CONCACAF Centre of Excellence in Trinidad was one of a range of international development projects FFA undertook. All were reported to the Australian Government," Mr Patterson said. The funds were allocated from FFA's international football development budget at the time and were not part of government funds provided to the World Cup Bid. The federal government last night it would not be seeking the return of the money because it was not part of the $45 million grant given to the FFA. Email nmckenzie@fairfaxmedia.com.au