Saldivar also commented on the situation with the Football Federation of Belize. As we reported a week ago, that body was blacklisted by the National Sports Council because it failed to register as required by law.
But, today's news is that the mighty FFB has finally sent in its registration. Of course, that's only after the Federation and its affiliates were banned from using all sports facilities managed by the Sports Council.
The registration was sent in yesterday afternoon - and Sports Minister Saldivar seemed to be enjoying the victory:….
Jules Vasquez
"Are you intentionally playing hard ball with the FFB to bring Mr. Chimillio to heal?"
Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of Sports, Public Service and Governance
"I don't know what is hard ball about up keeping the law. The law stated that they should have registered by a certain date. We extended that date twice; they ignored it and only now have complied as of 4:30 yesterday, so their application will be reviewed in the same process as the others are being reviewed. The others of course did not see themselves getting ban from our facilities because they complied with the regulations. The FFB was ban because they didn't comply and so to lift that ban we now must look at their application which will be done on Tuesday."
Jules Vasquez
"But Minister it's just a technicality, it's just a procedural process. Is it fair to penalize an entire football organization, a super organization and its subsidiaries for just a procedural failure which lets admit it many times have not done past."
Hon. John Saldivar, Minister of Sports, Public Service and Governance
"I am glad that you have mentioned that many times it has not been done in the past. One of the first things I did when I became the minister sports was to let the National Sports Council know that I would hold them to their responsibility to properly police all sporting federations in this country and that is what we are doing. In terms of penalizing them, as far as I am concern it is they that refuse to register it. It wasn't a matter of failure to register or oversight to register it. It was a decision for them not to register and it was publicly stated that they didn't feel that they had the obligation to register. I am sure they have now been properly counseled by their attorneys."
As he noted, no decision has been made on the future of the FFB and those facilities managed by the Sports Council - that will be deliberated at a meeting to be held next week Tuesday….
Email
Print