It is a great pleasure and with pride, we present the financial statement of our Confederation for the year ending 30 June 2016.
CAF is at a watershed moment in 2016 which sees the culmination of our first really significant marketing contract after Eight Years.
No, one can deny the significant impact made to African Football by this agreement which involved CAF retaining all its right and appointing an exclusive marketing agent with an assurance of a minimum guarantee. In this period, we saw our cash balance increase from $17 to $ 108 million and equity From $33 to $ 131million.
But this contract was not only about CAF Finances, it was also about ensuring football development throughout our continent and it is interesting to note the increases in price monies before and after the contract:
– CAN
– CL
– CC
Besides above, we also started the Contract with Africa project which in 2006 saw CAF:
Subsidizing the employment of Education officers in all our member associations,
Providing a capital grant of $100k and $ 125k every four years respectively,
We established a coaching license project which has issued around 32,000 C, B and A,
Licenses to date and currently this has been upgraded to an E Learning system which allows training and issuance of licenses anywhere in Africa as long as there is an internet connection,
We have distributed computers and defibrillators to all our members for improved administration and support better medical care for players,
We have completed the Cameroon academy to a world class educational facility devoted primarily to train the trainers in different domains of football.
In last two years, we have concentrated on the Club Licensing project to improve clubs structure in Africa with its obvious benefits to players, increased credibility so that we can attract more commercial partners.
As I said earlier, we are at a watershed moment in African Football as we complete the old commercial content from 2017 and as we will see the effects of the new marketing contracts which assure CAF a minimum income of $1Bn over a period of next 12 years.
One can only wonder what we can achieve as a continent with such an increase in our resources, if we were to maintain the same focus on development as in last eight years.
In this context, we have carried out an extensive financial projection up to 2028 and we are anticipating that most of these revenues will be used to percolate benefits down to all our members. In fact, over next 12 years we expect to see our equity only rise from $150m to $290m which is necessary not to erode the current capital base of our Confederation after taking inflation into consideration.
The immediate benefits of the new contract will be seen in prize monies which are as follows as from 2017:
OLD 2017-2020 2021-2024 2025-2028
-CAN $1,5m $4m $4,5m $5m
-CL $1,5m $2,5m $3m $4m
-CHAN $0,75m $1,25m $1,5m $1,75m
-CC $0,66m $1,25m $1,5m $2m
In fact, the distributions to teams will increase for all other competitions for example:
-U20 by 213%
-U17 by 441%
-Women by 200%
Another important factor to bear in mind is that the group stages for our club competitions will increase from 16 to 32 teams; hence we will have at least 64 clubs benefiting directly from distribution of prize monies by CAF.
It is our hope that through these resources the clubs will become more structured and will be able to keep more of its talent in Africa with all its obvious advantages.
I have however to warn you that with the additional resources comes added responsibilities for all of us. We are all aware that most of our revenue is derived from media rights and hence we will have to ensure that our competitions are held in best possible conditions with quality of TV production keeping pace with rapid improvement happening in that area.
Sponsors are also very conscious of associating themselves with credible organizations/sports and all our contracts give ability for them to resign a contract on grounds of reputational damage. Hence we now have a collective responsibility to maintain the credibility of African football and be prepared at any given time to be accountable for our actions.
I would like to end by saying the willingness of our commercial partners to commit such large sums for football development is a result of the work of so many before us from us; the sacrifices they made and their selfless devotion.
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