Posted on January 6, 2012
By Michael Lewis
TropiGol.com Editor
It once had its main offices in Guatemala City.
Today, CONCACAF boasts a burgeoning staff of 35 people, many working out of its New York City headquarters with offices in Miami and Guatemala City. It also had presidential offices in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago when Jack Warner was president.
That includes the confederation’s video studio, which handles the production of various pieces — streaming games, interviews and game and tournament previews.
“That’s another element that wasn’t here six or seven years ago,” acting general secretary Ted Howard said. “That’s another area where we’ve grown in the last few years.”
With the growth of the CONCACAF Champions League, the organization has been able to bring in a full-time staff that is responsible to work with teams as account managers, Howard said.
He added that these officials become venue managers on match day, working at various venues so that “we provide the level of service necessary for the Champions League and the teams to provide fairness and everything else that goes on in a venue and to oversee the matches.”
“All of the games are televised so that we need to make sure we have the right people there in case there issues — weather or otherwise — that we have to deal with,” Howard said.
These same individuals work on CONCACAF qualifying tournaments, whether it is the youth, Olympic, full national team or men or women.
“It’s really added another level of professionalism to what we do because these guys all know exactly how we like to run our events,” Howard said.
CONCACAF also has an office in Miami and Guatemala. The latter is staffed to take care of matches in Central America.
Howard said he wasn’t surprised by the growth of the confederation over the past two decades.
“Not at all,” he said. “I think it all comes down to funding and being able to support it and clearly the Champions League and the Gold Cup especially has grown incrementally from tournament to tournament with a new format that we came out with, going into 13 different cities to do the tournament. It has changed a lot of things. It has produced a much quality.”
Switching the CONCACAF Gold Cup from a winter to summer tournament opened up the event to cold weather venues that would not be able to host games in the winter.
“All those changes that were made just brought a whole new look,” Howard said. “You look back at where the NASL was when it started and you look back at where MLS when it started. All these things where they change, you find the right niches for your events. Everything grows incrementally.”
The biennial Gold Cup funds CONCACAF. The idea to move the tournament from city to city has expanded its reach and bolstered attendances.
“We move all that around to try in order to create and keep interest to move to different cities,” Howard said. “The next time they will have a game, they will know what it is and hopefully support it and watch it.”
Categories: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Caribbean, Cayman Islands, Central America, CONCACAF, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, U.S.A.
Tags: CONCACAF, CONCACAF Champions League, CONCACAF Gold Cup, Guatemala City, Jack Warner, Miami, Port of Spain, Ted Howard
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