FIFA Grants BVIFA Final Constitutional Extension

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Football
FIFA Grants BVIFA Final Constitutional Extension
By Dean Greenaway
Dec 5, 2007, 08:04

***image1:right***TORTOLA—A five member committee appointed during a Monday night meeting will hold its first meeting on Thursday afternoon, after FIFA granted the BVI Football Association yet another extension to complete its constitution, which the clubs did not ratify last week.

During the meeting with Harold Taylor, FIFA’s Development Officer for the Caribbean and Serge Dumortier, who oversees financial statutes, Franka Pickering, Mary Phillips, Hillary Edwards, Wendol “Poto” Williams and BVIFA general secretary Kenrick Grant, were appointed to review the constitutional articles the clubs rejected.

They have scheduled a 1:30 p.m. meeting for Thursday at the BVIFA headquarters. The document must be sent to FIFA on or before Dec 31 and must be ratified by Jan 15, or risk losing the $250,000 it receives annually. “The BVI has been given many deadlines,” noted Dumortier, pointing out that the first deadline was in Aug 2006, with subsequent deadlines in between. “We are giving the BVIFA until the end of December.”

Among the contentious issues that were being pushed, is the clause that only “nationals” or “belongers” could become executive committee members. Most people involved in the sport are not from the BVI and even BVIslanders disagreed with it. “You can’t have that article, it discriminates,” Dumortier said to a thunderous applause. “I suggest it maybe a requirement, that a person must be resident in the territory for a five year minimum.”

Taylor said they had been hearing about the BVI statutes and the purpose of their visit was to come and see what was really happening, but they couldn’t come during last week’s constitutional ratification process because they were doing some work in the U.S Virgin Islands at the time.

“We came to see about the statutes and to see again what we could do about the Gold Project, which has been languishing for sometime,” he said. “Because of this meeting, I think we have moved forward, where we have set up deadlines for the end of the year to make whatever amendments with a small committee and then we can proceed from there. So, I think we have made some progress tonight and I think it augers well for football in the BVI.”