ABFA Executive Committee completes Concacaf Executive Mentorship Program

The Antigua and Barbuda Football Association hosted the Concacaf Executive Mentorship Program (EMP) over the weekend of 12-13 September 2026, with the full Executive Committee and every Head of Department in attendance for both days.

The EMP is a One Concacaf Initiative developed under the Confederation's Governance Evolution agenda. It extends best-practice sharing beyond Presidents and General Secretaries to entire Executive Councils across Concacaf's 41 member associations, and is delivered on-site at the host association.

The two-day curriculum covered leadership and governance, the role of the Executive Committee and the separation of powers, administration, the conduct of Executive meetings and congresses, strategic and financial planning, crisis and risk management, and ethics and integrity.

Delivery was led by a senior Concacaf team which included Horace Reid, Director of the Concacaf Caribbean Office; Howard Mcintosh, Director of Caribbean Member Associations Affairs; Camara David, Facilitator; and Mikael Brann, Facilitator, who led the sessions on association communications.

"I am satisfied that our Executive Council has had the opportunity to see Concacaf at work at close quarters," said President Ickford Roberts. "What that gives us is exposure to the football ecosystem and an appreciation of the synergy required between the Executive Council and the Secretariat of the Association to run as a well oiled machinery. Governance is not an abstraction. It is the discipline that allows every other part of our football to function."

Attendance by all Executive Committee members is a requirement of the Program. The ABFA extended the requirement to all Heads of Departments, ensuring that the administrative staff responsible for implementing Executive decisions received the same instruction as the officials who take them.

"The value of this programme is not in the two days. It is in what follows," said General Secretary Zorol Barthley. "We now develop our action plan, and we take this training to our stakeholders. That is how governance becomes practice rather than paperwork."