GEORGE TOWN, Grand Cayman (CNS) -- Paul Macey has resigned from the Cayman Islands Football Association just days after he and most of the other members of its executive committee were re-instated during the annual general meeting on Saturday.
The news comes against the backdrop of a possible local corruption probe into the local football body after its annual audit was stopped as a result of suspicions and unsubstantiated transactions last week.
The revelation that auditors had reported their concerns to the Anti-Corruption Commission came after several weeks of criticism and controversy surrounding the CIFA executive and its decision to reject two challengers for positions on the committee. This in turn led to the sports minister announcing that the annual grant from government to the association was being withdrawn until CIFA became more transparent and responded to the call for change.
Macey, who held the post of general secretary, was the one who had accepted the nominations of Renard Moxam and Sharon Roulstone last month, challenging two positions on the executive ahead of the deadline. He had given the indication that the nominations were in order. However, a week after the deadline had past the executive committee told Moxam, who was nominaed for the post of first VP, held by Bruce Blake, and Roulstone, who wanted to run for the assistant general secretary post, currently held by Mark Campbell, that their nominations were invalid and the deadline had passed to rectify them.
Seen by many as a trumped-up technicality to ensure the current executive remained in place, the decision by CIFA to dig in and not allow the challengers to face a vote caused a significant public outcry.
With the news of the corruption probe ahead of the AGM and the lack of audited accounts to present at the meeting, as well as the controversies over the elections, CIFA had reportedly been advised to postpone the AGM. However, the meeting went ahead, even though no formal accounts were presented.
Armando Ebanks was rubber stamped into the role of treasurer of the organization after Canover Watson was forced to step down as a result of criminal charges laid against him in a local hospital corruption case unrelated to CIFA. The rest of the executive was reinstated and officials announced that there would be an executive committee meeting Monday to discuss the audit and that the association would cooperate and supply whatever missing information was needed to complete it.
Blake was appointed as first vice president for another four years but he also remains as acting president following the charges against the suspended CIFA and CONCACAF president, Jeffrey Webb, who was arrested in Switzerland in May as part of the massive corruption probe into FIFA by the US Department of Justice. He remains under house arrest in New York.
More may be revealed later this month about both the US FIFA probe and that of the related enquiry into the awarding of the last two World Cups by the Swiss authorities as law enforcement agents from both countries have scheduled a joint press release in two week’s time.