Sale of world cup tickets was above board – Coombs

The sale of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ quota of tickets to this year’s Football World Cup, currently taking place in Brazil, was done above board.{{more}}

And according to president of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation (SVGFF) Venold Coombs, “there was no hanky-panky.”

St Vincent and the Grenadines received just over 200 tickets from football’s world governing body FIFA. However, these ticket were not offered on the local market.

“We got the tickets; in fact we got just over 200, less than the 250 which were allocated to us… We sold them to another buyer and this money came in very handy….We are using the money to send the Under-20 team to Cuba for the qualifiers later this month,” Coombs told SEARCHLIGHT, when quizzed on the issue recently.

He confirmed as well that it was only a percentage of the ticket sales that ended up in the coffers of the SVGFF.

Coombs noted that in recent times, the SVGFF had expended monies to send the female team to qualifiers in Antigua and Barbuda and the senior men’s team to the Windward Islands tournament in Dominica; hence they were short on funds.

“On that Under-20 team, there are lot of talented players like Bounty and Kyle and so on… You can’t disappoint them; you have to give them that opportunity to showcase their talent,” Coombs explained.

Coombs added that the actions of the SVGFF were legitimate and ethical.

“There is nothing wrong about doing that; it was done above board…That is a normal practice by countries like us…People here don’t buy the tickets. … It is only one guy who works at the port, who came one day and inquired at the office, but he never came back,” Coombs stated.

The local football boss reiterated that such accusations of under hand dealings could only come from “mischief makers who want to tarnish the good name of football in St Vincent and the Grenadines.”(RT)