As it aims to completely remove their deficit by the end of the year, Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) General Secretary Dennis Chung says the current administration has massively improved the financial management of local football’s governing body.

The JFF’s financial situation has been a longstanding talking point which has affected different aspects of the football programme locally.

However, Chung on Tuesday revealed that the federation has cut its deficit to $90 million as of September. In 2022, it was reported that the deficit totalled around $230 million and had once exceeded $400 million prior to 2021.

Chung says the funding from world governing body FIFA as well as the kits sponsorship with German manufacturing giant adidas have made a significant difference.

“The adidas contract actually adds a lot to that. I don’t think the JFF could survive without that. We have, however, been getting a lot of funding support from FIFA. Nothing has changed, FIFA is still the number one supporter for the JFF followed by adidas, followed by corporate sponsors, then after, the Government comes in,” he said.

Chung, a chartered accountant, has praised the JFF’s financial team for enhancing the federation’s status compared to earlier administrations.

“I think what has changed is management of the money. I think the team has managed it very well. Before every match [general manager for national teams Roy [Simpson] does a budget and that budget has to be approved by the accounting team who has to say they’ve identified the funding,” said Chung.

“What was happening before was approving the budget and not knowing where the funding is coming from. Even though we’re playing more football, we’ve had situations where we said we can’t do that, so it’s the management of the budget that has improved. The team here has been doing an excellent job.”

Although happy with the current situation, Chung says a lot more work needs to be done.

“We’re still not out of the woods because we still have a massive payables [bill]. We’ve reduced it from 400 million to 300 million and we still have a negative current ratio. We have better cash flow management but we still have an issue to deal with in terms of cash flow, so we’re hoping that initiatives that we have on the cards now, we’re hoping that by the end of the year we should be in the clear,” he said.

“We’re doing our audits on time, our budgets, and everything. I think we’ve made a significant stride administratively, and I think that we have a very good team in place that has helped us. I think the strategy that was employed of having some form of financial and organisational stability [has worked].”

Chung also stated that the federation is awaiting a report from FIFA after an audit was done earlier this year. He said the organisation has received positive feedback from the world’s governing body.