Tuesday, November 16, 2021 - 09:52

The Gibraltar FA has yet to publish audited financial statements despite repeated calls from the public for the national association to come clean with its bookkeeping, following acceptance into the UEFA family over eight years ago. The last we heard, a leaked copy of an Audit Findings Report presented by the international firm, Baker Tilly, exposed ‘significant deficiencies in internal control’.

FINANCIAL ABUSE AND CRONYISM
In April 2015, the leaked independent report highlighted severe breaches in financial law, where an ‘inaccurate list’ of credit card holders was being kept by the association.
“Previous authorised card-holders' cards were still active after they had resigned from their posts,” the report initially presented to the GFA in November 2014 revealed. “It contained individuals who had resigned from their posts and were no longer eligible to be authorised signatories to the bank account.”
According to Baker Tilly, this information, coupled with zero controls put in place to reconcile card transactions, could, in the auditors' view, have led to unauthorised transactions taking place.
“The GFA had not kept its Bank Mandate up to date,” the report said.
“In addition, bank transfers made by email were issued by a sole authorised signatory, when two were required.”
The report also stated that there was a distinct risk that any sole signatory effecting bank transfers could lead to cases of fraud or error. Other deficiencies included the lack of a formal budget and procurement process as well as the absence of documentary records of funds received by the GFA in respect of club registration fees and ticket sales.
The auditors said that the national association was also in breach of PAYE regulations, such as tax and Social Insurance contributions which had not been paid by the due dates.