Same goes for New Yundum School’s D4M
The Confederation of African Football, Caf, has issued guidelines to winners of the recently held maiden African Schools Football Championship which ended in Durban, South Africa early last month.
The tournament started with the six zones of Africa staging their own events which produced qualifiers to the continental cup in South Africa last month.
Two Gambian schools, ScanAid of Brufut and New Yundum, took part in both the boys and girls categories.
ScanAid won the girls category of the Wafu Zone A championship winning US$100,000 and qualified to the African Cup where the school took third place winning another US$150,000 making a total of US$250,000.
New Yundum School meanwhile finished at the zonal level taking second place in the boys category and winning US$75,000. The championship was conceived and funded by the family foundation of the Caf president Motsepe who wants Caf to take it up annually.
The continental body this week issued guidelines as to how the prize money would be spent by the beneficiary schools, in the case of The Gambia, ScanAid and New Yundum.
According to the guidelines, the prize money should be used towards the promotion and development of schools projects defined by the schools and approved by Caf. It also instructed that the projects must have a direct or indirect impact on students at those schools or the surrounding community.
“A project submitted by a school must relate to the following fields in order to be eligible: Football infrastructure (e.g., pitches including lighting systems, changing rooms). Technologies (IT systems, IT equipment, IT internal networks, etc.).
o Transport (school bus or minibus).
o Schools Infrastructure (construction of bathrooms, dining room, kitchen, electricity and water installations, classrooms, library, laboratories, solar energy system, etc.)
o Equipment and materials for the schools (classroom furniture, library furniture, library equipment, etc.) Basic sports equipment (e.g., complete kits for boys’ and girls’ school teams, balls, training equipment including goals, mini-goals, bibs, cones, etc.) for schools.
o Hard skill and soft skill educational training for students (IT, languages, administration, management, social responsibility, management of facilities, Safeguarding, etc.)
Any other field as may be admitted and approved by CAF from time to time,” the Caf guidelines indicated.
Role of Caf
According to the guidelines Caf shall be active and available to assist schools in the selection of projects and shall respond to any written communication from a school and/or Member Association (GFF) about prize money in a timely manner. Caf shall facilitate the exchange of appropriate communication and assist the Schools and its Member Associations (GFF) to accelerate their project.
Caf said the beneficiary school must follow the procedure established in the guidelines to benefit from the prize money adding that the beneficiary school swill receive a Project Request Form from the Caf secretariat which must be filled, signed, and returned to within 14 days of receipt. “Caf will review the project request form within 14 days of receipt and reserves the right to request any additional document along with the statement of approval and shall examine the information and relevant documentation submitted by the schools in accordance with the criteria and requirements established in these guidelines”. Depending on the project, if deemed necessary, Caf may visit the schools and the location where the project will be carried out and if Caf deems that the information and relevant documentation submitted by the schools satisfies the criteria established by the guidelines, it will inform the schools in writing of its acceptance of the Project to be followed by a Statement of Approval which must be duly signed by Caf, the Member Association (GFF) and the Director of the School concern.
“The Statement of Approval shall contain the name of the project, its objective , purpose, the amount to be transferred, milestone (incl. documents to be submitted to Caf to unlock funding), implementation timeline , condition for the payment and any other legal requirement (such as insurance etc.) ,The schools will be responsible for the procurement process and single projects above USD50’000 must go through a tender process and evidence of a competitive procurement process shall be submitted to Caf before the payment process is initiated.
Reactions
Commenting on the Caf guidelines a senior official of the Gambia Football Federation GFF said it clear from it that the role of the GFF is very limited in the implementation of the projects. “We are proud that as a national association we invested in the participation of the two teams from the zonal level to continental level,” our GFF source said.
