The Football Federation of Belize is moving from strength to strength after a new executive was swept into power in early March.
Today, six months after taking over - the executive held a press conference to report its state of affairs to the media.
President Ruperto Vicente says that they took over a Federation in financial and organizational shambles:..
Ruperto Vicente, President FFB
"They were no programs for the football federation of Belize. There were no committees in place and there were no tournaments that were properly organized. There was no training for anyone involve in football. There was no equipment at the football federation of Belize. Football was being administrated by two individuals. There was no football calendar and there was no public confidence in the football federation of Belize."
"As we move forward with all the challenges that we face there are now programs in place. We now have the grassroots programs where we seek to train young children to play football. As I have said to you a couple months ago that we are going to be investing in young children. We will start training young children to play football. We now have in place a referees program. We now have in place a coaches program. A female program and we are working talent schools in every football district in this country. There is now in place a strong relationship with the government of Belize - we've establish that and we want to maintain that relationship with the government and that we are going to keep."
"There is now a strong relationship as well with the top league of this country. We've been encourage by the visit of Mr. Mauricio Caballero 2 weeks ago who said to us as a federation that we must take care of the top league of this country and so everything we do in training young children - it must be with the idea that they will get to the top league of this nation. Our main goal is to ensure that our teams get to the finals and as well is to get a close as possible to the world cup and that where we are heading and we want to get there. We've gotten to the second round of the tournament, but we want to now pass the second round of the world cup tournament."
Vicente says FIFA has given them 30 thousand US dollars for the top league which will be handed over to that top league for the first time - even though the money has been coming for years.
The FFB will also launch its interdistrict competition on the 22nd. September - and in October, they'll have interdistrict football for females.
Channel 7