Government laments suspension of FIFA

The Minister of Youth and Sports of Mozambique, Alberto Nkutumula, described the suspension by FIFA of funding to the Mozambican Federation of Football as “serious”, and said the decision "discredits the country".FIFA has suspended funding to the Mozambican Football Federation due to lack of transparency over funds it granted to Mozambican football’s governing body, the press reported last week.Quoted by the newspaper O País yesterday, Nkutumula said: "I do not want to believe that this is true because, to be true, it is serious. If it is not true, it is for the best, because Mozambican football should be gaining from our support and that of international associations as key partners in its success." Nkutumula noted that if it is proved that there was embezzlement of FIFA funds the FMF may have been involved in a crime ."If is proven that there was deviation of values, that is a crime.

 Mozambican law is clear on this. I sincerely hope that this is nothing but a misconception," the minister said.In turn, former FMF president Feizal Sidat, under whose mandate the activities causing FIFA to suspend the funding occurred, said he was available to clarify his role in the institution."We are ready to clarify to the new [FMF] board whatever it deems relevant. I spoke to FIFA, who said that it is nothing like that, but instead these are audits that all federations undergo," said Sidat, also speaking to O País.Current president of the FMF, Simango Junior, told the press: "It is a situation that we found when we took office. The truth is that the accounts are in fact not very good and it is our responsibility, because we found things in these conditions." The new president of the FMF said that FIFA rejected the results of an audit of the accounts by the previous FMF board under Feizal Sidat on the grounds that they had not respected the procedures that FIFA requires in drafting financial reporting."The situation will normalize within a few days, though FIFA has not specified a period of time. It must be stressed that when we arrived, we did the first audit, but it was not accepted by FIFA," he added.According to the delegation which travelled to Maputo last week, FIFA allocates a total of about of about one million US dollars (about 980,000 euros) to the FMF annually.