Fiji FA makes changes

THE Fiji Football Association has made some amendments to its constitution and this was passed during its extraordinary congress at Bluelight Hotel in Nadi on Friday.

President Rajesh Patel said the amendments to the statutes were passed after majority members voted in favour for the changes.

He said they were now in line with the statutes of Oceania Football Confederation and world governing body FIFA.

“It has shown 80-85 per cent of our statutes were already in line with FIFA’s statutes, it was the new statutes of FIFA which we needed to be in line with and today the draft statutes were approved and passed by the members. We had 23 district member associations here and they all fully supported the amendments.”

Patel said they also approved amendments to the governance regulations of Fiji FA which is made up of the ethics code, anti-doping code and disciplinary code.

“This immediately comes into effect from today and districts will see the changes. Now the districts will have to fall in line with Fiji FA statutes.

“Bob Kumar our former chief executive officer (CEO), was tasked to get the administration of districts in line. We have few districts that have already asked Bob to look at their statutes and get their statutes in line with Fiji FA statutes,” Patel said.

“He will re-look at them, make the appropriate changes and take them back to the districts and the districts will then call their extraordinary congress and get their clubs to pass their constitution and this will help the entire process all the way from the club system to the national body.

“If the constitutions are aligned then it is very helpful to the districts as issues like protests and player registrations and so on can easily be solved.”

Patel added players will also have to be in line with the statutes of both Fiji FA and their districts and those who break rules will be given harsh penalties.