The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) has been under conditional funding from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) for over a year, according to a source close to the federation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The GFF is on some form of conditional funding. The FIFA audit team was here recently, and they were also here last year. The federation is still under conditional funding, and it’s almost two years now that they are on conditional funding. While the audits were passed there were specific requirements apparently that the GFF didn’t meet in a sufficient manner, possibly because of insufficient documentation on some expenditure,” the source disclosed.
The source further said, “FIFA does two disbursements, one in January and one in June. Conditional funding doesn’t allow you to get those two disbursements as per normal. Basically the GFF would receive a disbursement of US$500,000 in January and another US$500,000 in June under normal circumstances when you tick all the boxes or meet all the requirements. However conditional funding means that you won’t get the entire amount in January and you get only what is needed or required. It’s not normal to be on conditional funding for this long and it’s uncertain what are the factors that are keeping or holding the GFF in this category.”
Meanwhile, GFF General Secretary Ian Alves remained tight-lipped when asked if the entity is currently under any form of conditional or restrictive funding. Alves stated, “I have no comment on that. It is not to my awareness.” Efforts to contact the GFF President Wayne Forde proved futile. Several calls to his cellular phone went unanswered up to press time.
However, Forde, when asked if the GFF is under conditional funding during the commencement of work on the D’Urban Park facility on April 24 by another publication, declared, “All of the leagues kick off in May, the Elite League and all nine of the regional association leagues. Any other speculation around the GFF operation is something that I will not give any credit to unless someone can present me with concrete evidence of what they are talking about.”
