MINUTES - FIFA.com

MINUTES OF THE 63 RD FIFA CONGRESS, MAURITIUS 2013 27
good governance and to restructure its administration
thanks to the FIFA PERFORMANCE Programme,
establishing finance, marketing and communications
departments as well as developing good relations and
trust with its stakeholders. The ensuing sponsorship
contracts had quickly amounted to two multiannual
contracts for over USD 1 million each. Sahilu
Gebremariam reported that through FIFA’s Goal
Programme, they had set up a functioning technical
centre and headquarters and had built their first
football turf pitch in Addis Ababa through the Win in
Africa initiative. Furthermore, CAF had invested in an
academy of excellence in the country which hosted
training courses for Eastern and Central African
member associations. He said that the Ethiopian football
community was very proud of what it had achieved in
just a few years, with FIFA’s help, and was pleased to see
that their collective efforts had translated into positive
football results: the qualification of the men’s national
team for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations finals and the
women’s team for the African Women’s Championship
finals in 2012.
Given the new programmes offered by FIFA, such as
the income generation programme or the programme
for less privileged member associations, through which
they were building a new football turf pitch, he was
confident that the Ethiopian Football Federation would
continue to grow and improve. He said that the EFF’s
vision was to create a world-class football environment
and that the men’s national team was currently top
of their group in the World Cup qualifiers and was
hoping to make it all the way to Brazil. In conclusion,
he thanked FIFA, under the leadership of Joseph S.
Blatter, for all it did for football development.
The FIFA Secretary General informed the Congress that
the new development regulations had been adopted,
as approved by the FIFA Executive Committee at the
end of March 2013. He explained that the General
Regulations for FIFA Development Programmes laid
down the foundations, principles and conditions to be
fulfilled by each member association applying to FIFA for
funding and would come into force on 1 July 2013, with
a transition period for full compliance until 1 January
2015. He outlined the main changes introduced by the
regulations, notably the requirements that member
associations have their global annual account audited,
with the auditor to be appointed by the association’s
general assembly, that the auditor conduct an audit
of the yearly financial statement presented by the
executive body of the association, and that the annual
audit report be presented to the general assembly.
He also announced the new reporting requirements
introduced by these regulations, such as the local FIFA
development programmes account audit report and the
obligation for the associations to present their latest
annual audited accounts as well as the minutes of their
general assembly, and mentioned additional changes
such as the obligation to carry out a tender process for
any expense equal to or above USD 50,000, and the
fact that FIFA would increase the number of annual
central audits from 10% to 20%. He then said that the
member associations would receive further information
on these new regulations at the seminars for presidents
and general secretaries that would be organised in the
various regions in 2013. He highlighted the need for the
regulations, given the rapid increase and diversification
of FIFA’s development programmes, as well as FIFA’s
aim of continuing to increase and diversify its offer of
development services in the near future.
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A video on the new FIFA extranet for member
associations was shown, which outlined the objective of
the project and the content made available to member
associations on the extranet.
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