Football may restart in June, says SFF president Chetty |23 April 2020

SFF president Elvis Chetty

Seychelles Football Federation president Elvis Chetty has revealed that football may restart in June as long as all the health guidelines can be met in the coming months in regards to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to Sports NATION in response to concerns expressed by clubs about the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) not taking a decision regarding when football will resume in Seychelles, SFF president Chetty said that he foresees how the season will evolve but firstly needs to consider the views of two major stakeholders before making a final decision on the format to be adopted when football restarts.

“First and foremost we must respect the guidelines of the department of health and then afterwards discuss with all the club members to come to a consensus on how we want the remainder of the season to pan out, but at the moment I would advise everyone to be patient and when the lockdown restrictions are loosened, then we will take the necessary steps to meet our members,” Mr Chetty told Sports NATION.

SFF president Chetty reiterated his promise that the federation will help all the clubs in all divisions financially but adds that this will require certain commitments by the clubs on an individual basis.

“We have already affirmed in a public statement the will to assist all our members as our financial situation is quite healthy but this will of course require that certain conditions are met before the funds are released where they will have to sign on club per club basis as per the guidelines of Fifa and our own SFF rules regarding disbursement of money. But as the department of health has issued a prohibition of movement regulations, we cannot flout this guideline so therefore we have to wait until things improve to make such payment,” explained the SFF president.

He also stated that with the football offices at Maison Football allocated to the department of health to help in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, they do not have any venue to meet their members for the time being but will convene a gathering soon to deal with all the concerns of the club.

“Despite our offices being unavailable, I have intervened and this is why the SFF administration took the initiative to write to all its members advising them to gather information of their foreign players in order to seek assistance from the Ministry of Finance from the government relief programme. As we have received a response from the government, we will now revert to the clubs though this is not our duty but we did facilitate this initial contact so now it will be up to individual clubs to provide the required documentation to the finance ministry to see if their foreign players will qualify for payment,” Mr Chetty said.

The SFF president claimed that in fact the SFF was the first federation to react to this pandemic crisis and had vowed to assist its clubs and added that this is not happening in other Confederation of African Football (Caf) and Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf)  regions.

“Last Friday, I was involved in a video conference call with the director of Fifa for the Caf and Concacaf regions along with other chairmen of Cosafa (Council of Southern African Football Associations) countries and I found out that none of them are planning to assist the clubs financially but are rather letting the clubs find solutions to their problems which is quite normal as the way clubs generate their funds should not be the main concern of the federation, but here we have agreed to help which should be appreciated by our members,” remarked Mr Chetty.

Asked how he sees the season unfolding when the pandemic is brought under control and the strict movement rules are relaxed, Mr Chetty says that he has a clear mind on the future of our national sport.

“I just want to reassure all our members that we have the situation under control as we have a well-calculated plan for the re-opening of football, but we cannot just implement it but would rather have a dialogue with everyone so that we come up with the best solution as I cannot decide at this stage who will receive what sum of prize money if the season is not concluded but this should come through a consensus. But in my view once we are given the all clear by the health authorities, we can get the teams to start training and they will most probably need two weeks to start getting their fitness back and ideally I would like to see the season restart in June but of course we have to realise we have to think of all the logistics as things will not be the same and we will have to change many ways things are done,” related SSF president Chetty.

In fact, Mr Chetty feels strongly that teams will have to consider the idea of playing behind closed doors for the safety of fans and he has even hinted at the possibility of testing players before matches if this can be negotiated with the health department.

“In the interest of the general public, we must think seriously of playing behind closed doors though we know this will have ramification in terms of gate receipts but we have to weigh its risk and as well as listen to the advice of the health officials but what is clear is that we must try as much as possible to complete the league season due to the  continental obligation with Caf and also agree on the format for the competitions for the 2020-2021 season which will surely be affected,” SFF president Chetty advised.

R. J-L.