HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC – Larry Mussenden urged Minister of Sport Glenn Blakeney to tread cautiously with a Government probe into the finances of the Bermuda Football Association.
Mussenden, the BFA president, warned Blakeney that the island faced a ban from international competition if the probe overstepped its bounds.
The Government appointed a commission to investigate how the BFA and the Bermuda Cricket Board spent US $20 million they gave to the two organizations.
“FIFA (football’s World governing body) takes a very strong view of government bodies overstepping their bounds and trying to get into the affairs of the member associations,” Mussenden told the Royal Gazette newspaper.
”There have been numerous cases before where FIFA tolerates no nonsense and they will issue a directive that, for instance, a clause like that actually be withdrawn.
”FIFA has issued threats before to countries that they will ban them from international competition and they stand by those threats.”
Mussenden had no issue with the Government wanting to know how the money they gave was spent, but their investigations should be restricted to this.
“We get money from sponsors, we get money from FIFA and there is no way that FIFA is going to allow a Government of any country to be enquiring how it is that they have decided that its money will be spent,” he said.
Mussenden also questioned the composition of the three-member commission which comprises two former BFA Presidents and a former national technical director.
Bermuda face Trinidad & Tobago early next month in Group B of the CONCACAF qualifying section for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
They are third in the group with one point behind T&T and Guyana.