The Commission of Inquiry into football and cricket has concluded that neither Bermuda Football Association nor Bermuda Cricket Board have any case to answer over their use of millions of dollars of public funds.In fact, both the BFA and BCB were commended by the Commission for their ‘overall level of financial administration’, who also said they could ‘find no cause for negative comment’.The same cannot be said for the Island’s sport clubs though who come in for the majority of the criticism included in the Commission’s report, which was released yesterday.Unpleasant and unwelcoming environments and questionable financial practices among the clubs were some of the issues highlighted in the report which also suggested that these circumstances were hampering ‘the proper development of sport in Bermuda’.While the issues surrounding the clubs were not strictly within the Commission’s narrow term of reference, which focused soley on the financial standing of the governing bodies, the problems came up during the inquiry and were of sufficient interest for the Commission to include them in its final report.“Both governing bodies feel very strongly that they do the best they possibly can to act as good administrators for the sports over which they have responsibility in Bermuda,” said the report. “At the same time, however, it is the very strong opinion of those people involved in discussions that certain of Bermuda’s social clubs are ‘not delivering the goods’ at the end of the day.“Much was made of the unpleasant environment which is not conducive at certain clubs to either having younger people (or we dare say ladies) attend. This is an unfortunate circumstance and is one which will continue to hamper the proper development of sport in Bermuda.“The Commission is minded to ask the question as to whether any of the clubs are required to have audited financials in the way the governing bodies have them?”In terms of the governing bodies’ allocation of Government funds, the Commission found that the BFA and BCB were in ‘good financial standing’ and largely exonerated them against the accusations of mismanagement that have been thrown at the executives over the years.“There is no evidence that the monies went to anyone other than the governing bodies,” said the report in a section concerned with the financial standing of the BFA and BCB. “All evidence indicates that the monies were spent on the items as outlined by the governing bodies in their grant requests to the Bermuda Government.”In a separate section dealing with the use of grant funding the report said that ‘there is no evidence that either governing body strayed in any significant way from the undertakings given in support of their grants’.“Could you completely absolutely exonerate them (the governing bodies)? No. And I say that because there are always better things that could be done,” said William Madeiros.“They themselves, outside of our remit, spoke to things that they would like to do better. Have they accounted for the money? Yes. Was the money spent were it was supposed to be spent? Yes. Have they spent money in tackling anti-social behaviour? Yes.“Could they do more? Of course they could. What is it they say in school? Doing well, could do better.”However, one area of inquiry the Commission was not tasked with was specifically detailing the way in which the money had been used for, nor was it asked to investigate if the roughly $20 million football and cricket have received over the years had been well spent in terms of success on the field.“The Commission was intended to be a short sharp exercise and was designed to have a very narrow point of focus,” said Madeiros, the Commission chairman. “It was immediately obvious to us that we would need to stick very closely to our remit . . . and give the Bermudian people answers to the specific questions being asked.”Sports Minister Glenn Blakeney said yesterday that he had already been satisfied that Government was getting ‘bang for their buck’ prior to setting the Commission’s terms of reference, and pointed to the national football team’s success in the recent World Cup qualifiers as evidence of this.“The remit was narrowly focused because I was satisfied we were getting bang for our buck and continue to get bang for our buck in terms of developmental programmes, particularly at youth level,” said Blakeney. “A number of our developmental programmes were cited by the international governing bodies as being exemplary for our region“You will note that there was the special BFA facility that was developed at Prospect, albeit with the assistance of FIFA. But FIFA would not have allocated funding to a domestic national governing body if they did not feel confident that they were on the right track.“Secondly, the manifestation would have been our last go round in the qualifying matches for the World Cup where we acquitted ourselves well enough for everyone around the world to say that within our region we were very competitive.”