FIFA has sent a stern warning to all participating member associations of the Women’s World Cup not to use preparation money to be sent to them for any other purposes.
The world football-governing body, in a circular no. 8 dated January 25, 2019, noted that the decision to give the funds to all the 24 teams expected to compete for honours in France was taken at the FIFA Council that took place in Kigali, Rwanda on October 26, 2018.
“Based on the decision of the FIFA Council, an amount of USD 480,000 will be available for each qualified member association and must be used for preparations for the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019,” the circular read.
Some of the conditions given by FIFA was for the funds to be used judiciously for the camping and other preparation for all the teams. It is worthy of note that some of the developing countries, including Nigeria in the past have used FIFA funds for other programmes.
Also in the memo it was stated; “No payment for costs already incurred prior to January 1, 2019 may be claimed from this amount.
“The participating member associations must report on the use of funds and a final itemised report must be submitted to the FIFA Women’s Football Competitions Department by Friday, August 30, 2019.
“FIFA reserves the right to audit all expenditure and will randomly sample at least four participating member associations to be audited by means of agreed procedures.
“The audit reports must be submitted to the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee for consideration.
“FIFA may deduct any funds not used in line with the specified purpose from the prize money to which the participating member association is entitled.
“Examples of eligible expenditure include organising friendly matches, training camps, delivering strength and conditioning programmes, purchasing sports and technical equipment, training technical staff and employing a sports psychologist for the team during the preparation phase.”
Meanwhile, each countries have been instructed to send their request for the funds to FIFA with confirmation from the bank while those who participated at the last FIFA World Cup in Russia to send details of same account used during the competition.