Jeff Webb officially elected president of CONCACAF

(CNS):  Updated -- Cayman’s local football boss was unanimously elected president of CONCACAF Wednesday morning at the FIFA congress in Budapest, where he received a standing ovation for his acceptance speech. Jeff Webb attracted support from 40 countries to take up the regional football body’s top post and ran unopposed. Webb, who is president of the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA), succeeds Jack Warner as president of the sport’s governing body in North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF). Warner quit last June 20 during a corruption investigation by FIFA.

Webb has over twenty years in leadership positions in football, as president of the CIFA, FIFA Executive Committee (observer), chairman of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Normalisation Committee, member of the FIFA Transparency and Compliance Committee, deputy chairman of the FIFA Internal Audit Committee, and chairman of the CONCACAF Youth Committee.

Following Webb’s election a list of financial mismanagement allegations against former CONCACAF leaders, Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer, were outlined to officials at the congress. Blazer, who is said to be unwell, was not at the Budapest meeting when the audit of CONCACAF's finances was revealed. Blazer's 10 percent commissions on television and sponsorship deals, paid to an offshore company, helped push CONCACAF's staff costs to $9 million from an income of $38 million last year, according to the audit. Webb said he was "shell-shocked, dismayed and mad" as John Collins unveiled details of the alleged financial mismanagement discovered after a five month investigation into the regional footballing body’s finances.

Warner left FIFA in disgrace last year, but Blazer is still CONCACAF's representative on FIFA's executive committee but following a motion from the Bermuda delegate, the Congress voted that he should be removed from FIFA's executive. The vote is not binding on FIFA, however, as only the world governing body can remove an official from the executive, but it was carried by a majority of 34 delegates with only two voting against. A succession of delegates demanded a commission of inquiry, the wholesale removal of CONCACAF's executive committee, as well as action against Blazer.

Collins also revealed that he had discovered that the $22.5m Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence in Trinidad is not owned by CONCACAF as members believed but by two companies owned by former president Warner. Collins warned Congress that attempts to reclaim the property or its value might be compromised by other legal actions outstanding against the Centre of Excellence.

Webb told the congress that one early cost saving measure under consideration was ending the $1m-a-year rental of the confederation's offices in Trump Tower in New York's Fifth Avenue and he promised to call an Extraordinary Congress later this year when full financial reports and assessments of liabilities would be available.

The new president vowed to concentrate on the game and promised a shift from "politics and economics" to football, adding that CONCACAF nations should work on improving soccer and strive to win the World Cup in 2026.