Concacaf Congress Turns the Page

(ATR) Victor Montagliani will serve as Concacaf president for another four years after being re-elected at the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football Congress in Las Vegas.

The election of Montagliani, who was running unopposed, closed the one-day Congress, which came the day after the official draw for the new Concacaf League of Nations.

The Canadian, who assumed the presidency in 2016 after accusations of corruption against the last three Concacaf presidents, assured that the image of the institution has been changed.

In 2015, U.S. federal prosecutors reported cases of corruption by officials and associates associated with FIFA, a scandal known as "Fifagate". The research focused mainly on collusion between officials of the Confederation of South America (CONMEBOL), Concacaf and sports marketing managers.

Invited to inaugurate the Congress, FIFA president Gianni Infantino also believes that Concacaf has "cleaned its name and its image".

"It is a serious Confederation, with transparent accounts," Infantino told reporters at the end of the assembly.

Concacaf has achieved a budget of more than 400 million dollars for the period 2019-2023, a figure that Montagliani described as "historic".

The president of the Finance Committee, Pedro Chaluja of Panama, said that it is an "unprecedented" budget for a cycle, which has been "investigated" and "detailed".

"The most important thing is that all of our income is returned to football," he added.

Chaluja says there are "new controls and processes" in place that provide a "transparency that we had never had", in a clear allusion to financial irregularities that surfaced under previous leadership.

Chaluja was elected to the FIFA Council as a member from Central America during the Congress.

Also elected to the Concacaf executive were Randolph Harris of Barbados and Yon de Luisa of Mexico as Vice Presidents for the Caribbean and North America respectively. Jorge Salomón of Honduras was elected as a member.

Sonia Fulford of the Turks and Caicos and Jeaninne Wong Loi Sing of Bonaire were elected as female members.

Like Montagliani, all were running unopposed.

Montagliani insisted that Concacaf is today "a family" of 41 nations and he is confident in achieving in the next four years "the successes of the last three years". Those successes include new funds for the development of football from the grassroots, with an emphasis on women's football, training, and competitions with new formats such as the League of Nations, the expanded Gold Cup, and the Club Championship.

The 2019 Gold Cup will begin on June 15 in the United States. At the congress it was decided that the first two group B matches will be played in Costa Rica, and the first two in group C will be in Jamaica, a Concacaf source toldAround the Rings.

A press conference to elaborate on these details will be organized in Kingston on April 2.

Written and reported by Miguel Hernandezin Las Vegas.

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