NASSAU, Bahamas (CMC) – CONCACAF president Jeff Webb says the severe economic challenges faced by the Caribbean mean the region should be given preferential treatment in the international football community. He was speaking at the opening of the CONCACAF Ordinary Congress here yesterday, to delegates which included Sepp Blatter, the incumbent president of football’s world governing body, FIFA.

“The Caribbean, the heart and soul of CONCACAF, has to be designed and gazetted as a special area for football in the world of football,” Webb contended.
“There is no other area in the world with such economic depression than the Caribbean. There’s no other part of the world that when you look at funding for football for a region, there is no other part of the world that has such an economic disadvantage.”
He continued: “The smallest single budgets in the entire world for national associations are in the Caribbean. We’re special but in that regard we’re special for the wrong reason.”
Webb, who will be re-elected unopposed for his first full term as head of the confederation, said lack of finances was a major hurdle faced by all national associations in the region in their daily administration of the game.
However, he stressed it was a test that Caribbean associations needed to deal with.
“And that, my friend, must be one of the challenges that we must overcome, because lack of resources, whether financial or human resources is the reality that we live in today,” said Webb, also a FIFA vice-president.
“That’s the reality of Caribbean football. That’s the reality that I, as a president of a national association, you as presidents of national organisations live with every single day. Creating that inspiration, that hope, that opportunity for individuals that we would like to but not having necessarily the resources to provide.”
Webb took over the helm of CONCACAF in 2012 in the wake of the infamous cash-for-votes scandal which resulted in the resignation of former FIFA strongman, Trinidadian Jack Warner.