More money coming for football – Coombs

President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation (SVGFF) Venold Coombs has announced that football set up here will again benefit from monies from the sale of television rights for regional world cup matches.{{more}}

Coombs made the announcement at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Bank of SVG Barrouallie Football League on Sunday, at the Keartons Playing Field.

Earlier this year, following a trip overseas, Coombs revealed that St Vincent and the Grenadines had received an undisclosed sum of money for the sale of television rights.

Last Sunday, Coombs said that more is in store.

Coombs stated that some of the money previously received helped fund the prize monies for the national invitational community inter-league competition, which ended in May.

He said that the next sum would be used for the ongoing National Lotteries Authority national club championships.

The local football boss boasted that he is bringing money into football, unlike his predecessors.

Caribbean countries are benefiting from the proceeds from the television rights, following a decision last year by football’s world governing body FIFA to scrap a multimillion-pound 2014 World Cup TV deal, after discovering the rights had been sub-licensed to a company owned by former Caribbean Football Union and CONCACAF boss Trinidadian Austin “Jack” Warner.

FIFA said then it had not approved the sub-licensing deal with JD International (JDI), owned by Warner, then a FIFA vice president.

Warner was reported to have sold the rights to the Jamaica-based cable TV station SportsMax in 2007 for between US$18m and US$20 million, though, including the 2010 World Cup.

FIFA also owed retroactive payments for rights to some 29 countries, dating back to 2009.

Warner has since resigned all his posts with the CFU, CONCACAF and FIFA, following a cash for vote scandal, which flared up last year June. (RT)