Preparations for Bermuda?s World Cup qualifiers against El Salvador are being hampered by a cash crisis.

Eleven games so far in 2004 have hit the BFA coffers hard, with the huge rental costs of hosting games at the National Stadium robbing the association of as much as a third of gate receipts from international friendlies.

And funds are running so low that BFA General Secretary David Sabir warned that proposed warm-up matches later this month may not go ahead due to a lack of finance.

?We need support from all sections of the community of Bermuda is we are have a chance of either fulfilling our potential against El Salvador or continuing our objective of becoming one of the better teams in the CONCACAF region,? Sabir told in a frank admission of poverty yesterday.

?We need to be playing as many international matches as possible at all levels but the finance just isn?t there.

?It seems such a shame that a country that boasts of being one of the wealthiest in the world doesn?t even have money available for one of its national sports.

?It might seem that we have played a lot of games this year, but our regional competitors have been doing this for years and they don?t seem to have these sort of problems.

?When we go away and speak to other associations about these matters, countries that are much more poorer than ourselves, I am ashamed about our situation here.

?We all need to be pulling in the same direction if we are to achieve what we want with soccer on this Island.?

A hectic series of games, to make up for years of relative inactivity, have caused the BFA bank account to haemorrhage in recent months, losing more than $120,000 through the costs of staging matches both home and away against Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Montserrat, Panama and Nicaragua.

Although the $28,000 related to the two World Cup qualifiers against Montserrat is recoverable via FIFA, the sport?s governing body, the costs of friendly games have had to be met by the BFA itself.

And the rental fees associated with using the National Stadium are among the largest expenses.

The recent two match tour of the Island by Nicaragua brought in more than $37,094 in gate receipts, but $14,510.74 had to be paid to the Stadium trustees to cover security, clean-up , policing, floodlights, a percentage of pre-sold tickets and the rental fee.

Take away the airfare, hotel bill and players? expenses, the venture, which saw two goals scored in each game by Shaun Goater and John Barry Nusum in victories, left the BFA $22, 371 out of pocket.

And Sabir is calling for a subsidy scheme to be put in place with the National Stadium so the BFA has a hope of making some money from their home matches ? which can then be ploughed back into the international football programme.

?Gate receipts alone will never be sufficient to fund football programmes domestically or internationally,? continued Sabir.

?This is the dilemma that we face with the National Stadium. We are a national sport but we are a financially-strapped association and yet we have to pay around a third of a gate receipts to use the National Stadium.

?We understand the argument that the stadium needs to be paid for and one of the main ways to do that is through the users.

?But some kind of subsidy for use of the stadium is one of the avenues we are currently exploring.?

The BFA are also pushing for sponsorship opportunities to try and raise funding to maintain Bermuda?s recent frequent forays into international football, something that is uniquely difficult due to ?our isolation and the related high costs of travel and accommodation?.

?We are beating the drum on sponsorship across the length and width of Bermuda and are appealing to any companies that are interested in being a partner ? a friend of football, if you will ? to try and raise the overall level of performance,? added Sabir.

?We need Bermuda to get behind us on this. The atmosphere for the game against Nicaragua when Shaun Goater was here shows what a positive thing football can be for society here.

?Our aim is to provide many more nights of football like that in Bermuda and further afield ? but it comes down to a question of money and what people are prepared to do to see a national sport prosper.?

Bermuda dropped five places to 164th in the latest FIFArankings after defeats on the Central American tour.

World Cup opponents El Salvador remain in 101