KSAFA loses millions in sponsorship
General Secretary of the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA), Dwayne Dillon, says the cancellation of this season’s football competitions have cost his association over $15 million in revenue.
The Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) president, Michael Ricketts, announced last month that the decision to cancel the football season was guided by the obligation to protect the well-being of stakeholders amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
MASSIVE BLOW
“This is a massive blow for us, because this is money that we are not going to get back,” said Dillon. “Our financial year ends in July and we are usually around 20 or $30 million in revenue at the end of that period.”
He continued:“However, for this year, I don’t think we will be anywhere near that, and so we are definitely looking at a loss of over $15 million.
“All of our competitions would have gone out the window, and we are looking at an average of about three to four million per competition, and this includes under-13, under-15, under-17, and the Jackie Bell Knockout competition, because we were looking at having a shorter version on the Jackie Bell this year.”
Dillon also added that with the cancellation of the season, his administration was forced to lay off a number of staff members.
“It is definitely affecting our operations because while we don’t have any competitions, there are expenses that will be reduced. We had to scale down our staff to ensure that the little that we have can take us forward for a while,” he said.
“I am very disappointed with the whole cancellation of the season because we could have waited, and if then we could have other competitions, including our youth competition in either this month or July, but the directive is, no football,” Dillon said.