Another important topic, which the critics have put forward is an allegation that they mismanaged $400,000 that should have gone to the development of football.
This allegation was penned in a letter from the Belmopan Football Association, and in it, the members squarely asked the FFB quote, "Is it true that $400,000 BZ or $400,000 US was misallocated by the FFB in 2018? Please state [the] sum miss-allocated in 2018, and kindly substantiate this with a copy of the FIFA Forward Project 1.0 Report."
We asked the General Secretary about the clear implication of this inquiry, and here's how he answered:
Earl Jones - General Secretary, FFB
"There was no misappropriation of funds. And if I may go back a little. The present executive, under the leadership of President Chuc, took over in 2018. In 2017, they were elected, 2018 they came into office. Again, what they were faced with, they were faced with huge bills. We're talking large sums of money that were owed by the Federation to the private sector. Those monies had to be cleared off. We were faced with lawsuits. We were faced with legal challenges. So, that money had to be paid off. We paid that money to avoid some of the court action, to balance off what we had there. We mitigated some. Some were up $120,000, $84,000, $55,000. These were some of the monies that were left owing, and the present administration had to take this up."
Reporter
"Were they from Vicente's administration?"
Earl Jones
"From previous administrations, right down. As a matter of fact, we're doing a review of the income tax liabilities, and that is running over $100,000+. The Social Security liability left for this administration was almost $30,000+. So, these things the administration had to be addressed. The FIFA money that was used, we later learned, when the FIFA compliance auditors came in, that FIFA money cannot pay those bills. FIFA money, you cannot reimburse. You have to pay it forward, that's why it's called FIFA Forward Funds. So, we couldn't reimburse. So, that meant that we had to reallocate funds to make sure that we meet the money that was spent. That money from FIFA money was called into use when FIFA instructed that we proceed with the bleachers' project. So, there was no misappropriation of funds. There were huge liabilities that were left there, unpaid for years, that was accumulating much interest, that the present administration had to take up, and we had to use money. We used FIFA money, which we had to replace."
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