It's been almost a year since the Belize National Team, the Jaguars, made its first appearance in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. At that time, the team members pressed the executive of the Football Federation of Belize to sign contracts to ensure that they were paid no less than $5,000 each to play the games in the US.
Right now, the Federation has paid them $3,000, and has promised that they will be paid the rest of their money after FIFA delivers a portion the proceeds from this year's World Cup:
Ruperto Vicente - President, FFB
"We still owe the each player $2,000 Belize dollars. We have paid them some of that money because each player was promised $5,000. As you all are aware the players had force the Federation into signing an agreement with them for them to be paid $5,000 each. The players were aware that the Federation does not have that kind of money and we still don't have it, but by the 15th July the Federation is going to be receiving some monies, so we are going to be able to pay the players all their monies."
Reporter
"Sir, your participation at the World Cup was paid by whom?"
Ruperto Vicente
"FIFA has its congress every year, so the 209 federation in the world FIFA sponsors 3 delegates. So FIFA pays for 3 delegates from Belize. I as the president have to be there, the general secretary has to be there and one other member of the executive, so FIFA pays the airfare, FIFA pays the hotel and all other expenses for the 3 delegates. The rumor that went around that the federation had used its own monies to get to Brazil that was untrue. We cannot afford it. If FIFA had not paid for us to be there to attend the congress we would not have been able to go there."
Reporter
"Can you confirm of every member country of FIFA gets thousands of dollars as a result of the profits from the World Cup?"
Ruperto Vicente
"Certainly, every federation is going to receive some monies from the World Cup profits. That was approved at the congress and for this reason I can tell you that the players are going to be paid. We are going to pay all our bills, everyone that we owe because FIFA is going to be providing us with some funds."
In a similar crisis of a far greater scale and on a far greater stage, this week, there were rumours that Ghana's National Team, the Black Stars would boycott training ahead of their world cup match if their demand for payment was not met. The coach said it was causing sleepless nights for him, and two players were suspended. Ghana ended up losing to Portugal today with a score of two to one.
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