December 10 – The Cayman Islands Government has restored its financial support of the Cayman Islands FA for the first time since the arrest of former Concacaf and CIFA president Jeff Webb in the FIFAgate raids of 2015 in Zurich.
The Cayman Islands government withdrew its annual funding of about $130,000 from CIFA in 2016. The new agreement is for $150,000 and is effective immediately.
“Not only do I think this is a historic day, there is a tremendous amount of significance to it,” said Minister of Sports Juliana O’Connor-Connolly (pictured right). “We’re going through this covid and quite successfully, thank the Lord. The timing is just perfect because football is up in leaps and bounds under the careful leadership of Alfredo Whittaker and his executive team.”
Overcoming the legacy of Webb’s US indictment and the subsequent revelations that put Trinidad and Tobago, and the Cayman Islands, at the centre of a sprawling financial corruption investigation, has been a major challenge and focus for CIFA president Alfredo Whitaker (pictured left).
“My focus was to recover CIFA, not only as an entity but the stakeholders because the priority was our clubs and today that dark cloud is now gone,” said Whittaker.
“The most important thing to me is the trust. The trust from the Cayman Islands Government towards this institution; it’s a way of saying we are here for you, we are here to support you, we are here to help you make things better and for me that’s overwhelming.”
The government support is important for CIFA’s development plans. “We are looking forward in completing phase 2 of CIFA; that is the construction of the other field, the construction of a building that will enhance that field. So we’re looking at around $4.5 million that we have to worry about investing in 2021.”
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