Cook Islands Football Association (CIFA) officials attended the Oceania Member Association Financial Governance Workshop held in Noumea, New Caledonia.

The association’s general secretary Allen Parker and finance officer, Teahi Wuatai recently travelled to Noumea to participate in a FIFA Forward event led by Christoph Suppiger, head of Member Association (MA) Finance Services, and MA Finance Services manager Leonard Gruter. They were supported by Elena Galluccio, who recently visited the Cook Islands as an external audit firm engaged by FIFA for the annual CIFA audit. The workshop attendees included the general secretaries from all 11 MA’s of Oceania, along with their senior finance officers.

Suppiger highlighted how MA’s can access the FIFA Forward Funding in order to get the optimum return to invest in their infrastructure.

Suppiger said: “The FIFA Forward Programme is a key driver of football development through the provision of funds across the global football community.”

Suppiger expressed strongly that financial governance structure, processes and procedures are critical features of MA’s operations to ensure that the funds are managed in a credible, transparent, and accountable manner.

He also highlighted support for MA’s to build great ambition in building good financial governance principles and providing the best tools and guidance so MA’s can continue to gain development from funding that is provided.

The workshop saw discussions of the general issues identified as part of the audit and reporting process along with matters relevant to the MA’s of Oceania. Presentations covered a wide range of topics including the common areas of weaknesses.

Oceania MA’s were given the opportunity to exchange ideas which allowed FIFA the chance to gather feedback in different areas. Feedback on the experience from the recent audit and reporting processes were also shared.

A Financial Governance Guide in 2023 was also introduced during the workshop. The guide was prepared by a team of external auditors, consolidated by FIFA with the aim of ensuring that the outcome was relevant, coherent, consistent and usable.

The document, available online, is a manual that will be used by MA’s to improve their operational capacity and management, financial governance, internal procedures and compliance matter and to best prepare themselves for the central review.

Galluccio, who works for Control Risk and led the CIFA annual audit, detailed the formulations of the manual and its application throughout the workshop, providing examples of the application to guide MA’s, along with facilitating theory and group work.

Associations were given the opportunity to share initiatives that they had undertaken to strengthen their operations in a range of areas from subsequent recipients, acquittals and internal communication respectively.

CIFA finance officer Wuatai called the workshop an eye opener, taking away a broad range of operational methods to strengthen and improve the internal processes at CIFA.

“Working alongside Elena (Galluccio) during her brief visit to the Cook Islands and again meeting with her in Noumea has given great understanding of utilising the funding to improve development of football in the Cook Islands.”

• CIFA Media