Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry
told senators on Thursday that while the Government was not allowed to
interfere with any money coming from Fifa, it was aware of the fund and would
ask Fifa to confirm what exactly that money was for.
She was responding to a question from Senator Piniel Denga,
who said there are rumours circulating that the Fifa Covid-19 relief fund can’t
be properly accounted for and wanted to know what the Ministry was doing about
it.
Minister Coventry said the Sports and Recreation Commission
(SRC) had been briefed about the rumours of abuse and was presently seized with
the matter.
“I thank the Hon Senator for his question. The Sport and
Recreation Commission (SRC) has been hearing of these allegations and they are
looking into it. However, as the Senators and Mr President Sir, you know that
the Government is not allowed to interfere with any potential monies that come
from Fifa. That being said, we will ask Fifa to just confirm whether or not
these monies were sent and for what use that money was sent for to Zifa. As far
as I am aware, there was money sent by Fifa to Zifa in order to resume the game
of football and help in terms of testing players. Since that resumption is
still under consideration, that money has not been released to the clubs as
yet. I thank the Hon Senator for the question and will follow up and hopefully
be able to come back with some more information,” responded Minister Coventry.
Fifa released over US$1 billion to all its 211-member
associations as part of bailing out football from the devastating effects of
Covid-19 that virtually grounded all sporting activity worldwide and changed
the everyday way of life. Chronicle
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