Ordinary general meeting of the Seychelles Football Federation |30 October 2023
Three new clubs join football family
The Seychelles Football Federation has approved three new clubs as fully fledged members during its 44th ordinary general meeting on Saturday.
Marverics, Rangers and Baie Lazare are the three new clubs and they have already been enrolled in the third division after the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) executive committee had previously approved their formation.
After completing their registration procedures with the Registrar, new football teams must be endorsed by the SFF executive committee before forwarding to the ordinary general meeting (OGM) for approval to become fully fledged members.
The three new teams were unanimously endorsed by representatives of the 27 existing clubs present at the OGM. The addition brings to 30 the number of clubs registered with the federation to date.
The OGM was chaired by SFF president Elvis Chetty in the presence of most of the executive committee members.
The current SFF executive committee was elected in November 2020 for a four-year term that finishes at the end of the last quarter of 2024 when there will be an extraordinary general meeting to elect a new committee for the years 2024- 2028.
Reputed SFF honorary president Suketu Patel was also present at the meeting. He gave useful advice to the executive committee on improving transparency, relationship and communication with the clubs.
He said he was ready to collaborate with president Chetty to help improve football development in the country and ensure that funding is more targeted to improve the level of football.
Mr Patel has in the past chaired the SFF for several years and has made great contribution to the development of football in Africa going as far as becoming vice-president of the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
After almost an hour’s debate, the meeting approved the audited financial statements for 2022 by a wide majority of 16 votes for and two against.
The audited financial statements for 2022 shows overspending of R27 million, including R8.4 million which is the figure representing depreciation of the assets of the SFF which the auditors categorised as part of the deficit, but which is not a real spending.
To be able to honour all its financial commitments for 2022, the SFF had to open an overdraft facility of R3.3 million with a bank, which has since been converted into a loan.
In his speech, SFF president Chetty attributed the high spending to the almost record number of activities undertaken in 2022 as well as the fact that the low exchange rate of the rupee to the US dollar meant that the income was less in comparison to 2021. The SFF receives all its funding from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) FIFA and Caf in US dollars (USD).
He explained: “Expenses were high in 2022 since after Covid, the airfares were exorbitantly high, the fuel prices went up and the cost of living increased in Seychelles. So, the same activity in 2022 cost us more in comparison to 2020 or 2021.”
Giving examples of the increased number of activities in 2022, president Chetty said while the men’s senior team travelled three times in 2021, a total of 34 international matches were played last year by the men and women, including youth competitions. The senior men’s team went as far as San Marino to play international friendly games.
With Seychelles not having an approved and homologated stadium for international matches, all these competitive matches had to be played abroad which also cost the federation more.
“We tried to minimise transportation and accommodation expenses, but these remained very high,” he explained.
There were also queries about spending in other areas such as administration and technical but at the end of the day the meeting agreed it was all related to football development, hence the approval.
The meeting also approved the budget for 2023.
Contributed