….GFF could receive more than US$500,000 in financial aid

Wayne Forde, president of the Guyana Football Federation, has praised the sport’s global governing body COVID-19 support efforts.

FIFA will release all operational funding due to member associations for the years 2019 and 2020 in the, as the first step of a relief plan to assist the football community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This measure will mean that a total of around USD 150 million will be distributed among the 211 national football governing bodies around the world.

Concretely, this means that the GFF will receive no fewer than US$500,000 as well as any remaining entitlement for 2019 and 2020.

According to Forde, during his praises for the Gianni Infantino-led International body initiative, the GFF had their senior men’s programme preparation for the Gold Cup playoffs squash, while the start of their Elite League was put on hold and as such, “there are financial implications to running there events and also there’s financial implication for the postponement of these events, given the amount of planning that would’ve gone into planning some of the programmes.”

Forde said FIFA’s support “will be key to primarily any potential loss to revenue but also any opportunity for sponsorship that may now have dissipated due to the difficulty corporate Guyana is experiencing at this time.”

Looking ahead, Forde revealed that the GFF was already “working through different scenarios and plans that will allow us to mobilize the football fraternity as rapidly as possible, once the green light is provided by the Ministry of Public Health and also the posture of the International health authorities.”

Meanwhile, FIFA President Gianni Infantino had stated that the pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges for the entire football community and, as the world governing body, it is FIFA’s duty to be there and support the ones that are facing acute needs.

“This starts by providing immediate financial assistance to our member associations, many of which are experiencing severe financial distress. This is the first step of a far-reaching financial relief plan we are developing to respond to the emergency across the whole football community. Together with our stakeholders, we are we assessing the losses and we are working on the most appropriate and effective tools to implement the other stages of this relief plan,” Infantino said.

As part of the measure, all remaining entitlements of member associations to operational costs under the Forward 2.0 Programme will be released in full for the years 2019 and 2020.

In particular, the release of the second installment of operational costs for 2020, which was originally due in July, will be paid immediately.

Under normal circumstances, FIFA’s member associations would have only received the full amount of the contribution upon fulfillment of specific criteria. Instead, FIFA is now transferring this amount as an active support to help safeguard football across all member associations.

This immediate financial assistance should be used to mitigate the financial impact of COVID-19 on football in member associations, namely to meet financial or operational obligations that they may have towards staff and other third parties.

FIFA stated that the standard obligations and responsibilities in relation to the use of these funds as outlined in the Forward 2.0 Regulations remain fully applicable and will be subject to the standard audit and reporting process.

This financial relief plan is possible thanks to the strong financial position that FIFA has been able to consolidate over the past four years. The next stages of the plan are currently being finalised and will be communicated in due course.