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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 2:13:02 PM
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World governing body threatens to cancel JFF's Goal Project funds
JFF CONGRESS... FIFA SHOCKER!
BY SEAN A WILLIAMS Observer staff reporter
Saturday, January 14, 2006
The Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) president Crenston Boxhill yesterday expressed shock and disbelief at a scathing letter from the world governing body FIFA, threatening to cancel funds for the proposed Goal project.
The letter, received yesterday and signed by FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi, outlined a series of concerns with the project, ranging from the proposed development site located in Malvern, St Elizabeth to the actual development plans for the National Football Academy and Training Centre.
Also, the stinging letter that came two days before the JFF's annual congress set for tomorrow morning in St Elizabeth, gave the JFF five working days on its receipt to provide "legal, relevant and complete information" with regard to the project or the "FIFA-funded Goal Project will be cancelled".
Boxhill... denied having received any of these so-called warning letters
It also stated that the JFF was informed that if "new project details were not available for FIFA's consideration before February 2006, before the Goal Bureau meeting in Zurich, FIFA would withdraw its funding and support for the facility project".
Boxhill, who is in his third year at the helm of the JFF after his defeated Captain Horace Burrell at the polls in 2003, said he was taken aback by the biting correspondence.
"When I read this letter I felt disappointment because we have been working with the FIFA development officer (Harold Taylor); all along we have been meeting the deadlines according to plans and we have been told that we are on track, so when I get a letter like this from the top, I was surprised and disappointed," Boxhill told Sporting World yesterday.
The FIFA development officer for CONCACAF with special responsibility for the Goal Project, Taylor said yesterday he does not believe it's "doom and gloom" for Jamaica, who received the grant and broke ground for the project at the original site in Portmore in November 2003.
"I don't see it as a doom and gloom thing, all the JFF needs to do is explain the concerns raised in the letter. Some people are giving the impression that the project is doomed, I don't think so," said Taylor.
"I believe that whatever is in that letter, they (JFF) can explain. I believe that they can answer them. My only concern is that on Sunday (tomorrow) they have their annual congress, so they need to deal with that then they deal with that letter," he added.
In one paragraph of the letter, it gave the impression that the JFF is planning to set up villas on the Munro lands rather than a technical centre "for the benefit of boys, girls, men and women footballers".
"When I look at the letter the second to last paragraph gives the impression that they are not planning a technical centre but to set up some villas, so Jamaica has to explain to FIFA what this is all about," Taylor noted.
Part of the plan, as he understands it, is that villas existing on the land will be renovated to be used to accommodate players in camp. "There are some villas on the property that could be renovated and be used for dormitories for the players, and the fields at Munro College nearby could be used for training and they could go on and build other fields, gym, etc," he explains.
Last September when he was in Jamaica on a two-day visit, Taylor endorsed the JFF's plans for the site and maintains that support.
"I feel it is a good site for the project as it is out in the country. I do believe if you get a technical centre away from the maddening crowds, away from the city, I think people would be better able to concentrate on what they are doing," he said.
And it was for that reason that the current administration changed sites from the original one in busy Portmore to the quiet hills of Malvern in St Elizabeth.
Another bone of contention in the letter is that FIFA is concerned that phase two of the development on a portion of the Munro lands cannot be purchased but is available on lease by the Munro/Dickenson Trust.
"Adjacent lands at Munro, which cannot be purchased by the JFF, actual football fields shall be leased instead of purchased, thus the purpose of a JFF-owned technical centre and football facility is rendered impossible," said the FIFA letter.
What the letter is claiming is that FIFA Goal Project money will not be spent on developments on leased lands, but Taylor expressed surprise at this point.
"I am not aware of that because I thought we could use leased lands, I know of other projects that are on lands leased from the government for up to 99 years... and from my understanding, the land in Portmore for the original site was a lease from the government... so all of this is very surprising to me," he said by telephone from Trinidad yesterday.
The letter also claims that the JFF is yet to present proper documentation to FIFA and that the Jamaicans have ignored a number of "warning letters" to this effect.
"I am not aware of any of these warning letters. I certainly have not sent Jamaica any warning letter. And that's not my function any way, that would have to come from FIFA," said Taylor.
Boxhill, too, denied having received any of these so-called warning letters. "We have not had any correspondence of warning from them (FIFA)...," he said.
Yesterday Boxhill said his team had already began preparing a response to the FIFA correspondence.
There were also concerns last night about an apparent trend regarding the timing of FIFA's letter, only two days ahead of a JFF congress. It was pointed out that a week before the 2003 JFF Congress, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter broke ground for the Training Centre, and last February on the eve of another congress, FIFA issued a letter threatening the JFF not to sell the building housing its offices.
But in concluding, Taylor said he believed that this letter from FIFA originated out of what "I believe is that somehow some wrong information went out and what we have to do is to respond..."
"I believe that they (JFF) can give a legal and very strong answer to it, so I am not too worried about that letter," he added.
The Goal Project is a US$400,000 FIFA grant to help countries to construct a National Football Academy and Training Centre.
When ground was broken back in 2003 by FIFA president Joseph 'Sepp' Blatter at the Portmore site, Jamaica became the 22nd country in the region and the 161st in the world to benefit from the Goal Programme.
Below is the full text of the letter from the FIFA:
The Portmore Technical Centre - Final Warning
Dear President,
In November 2003, the FIFA President, accompanied by a delegation, visited Jamaica at the occasion of the ground-breaking of the JFF Portmore Technical Centre. The official event was also attended by Jamaican personalities, including the Acting Prime Minister at the time, the Rt Hon Portia Simpson Miller.
Eighteen months later, the FIFA Development Office sent a warning to the (new) JFF executive, including its president, advising the body that FIFA would withdraw its funding for the Technical centre as no construction nor any further developments had taken place since the ground-breaking ceremony.
The JFF responded in the autumn of 2005 - some 20 months after the original ceremony - that an alternative site and Centre were being considered. A member of the FIFA Development Office was advised by the JFF towards the end of 2005 at a meeting in St Kitts that a new site had been identified in the parish of Manchester and that a project description would follow shortly.
The JFF informed that, if the new project details were not available for FIFA's consideration before the February 2006 Goal Bureau meeting in Zurich, FIFA would withdraw its funding and support for the "new" Technical Facility project.
To this day, FIFA have not been formally advised and are not in possession of relevant and pertinent information about the alternate site, other than through statements that were made in the regional press by Mr Harold Taylor.
This situation has become perfectly unacceptable and FIFA will not be standing idly by any further.
It is bad enough that the FIFA president was misled - and through that FIFA as a body - when he went to attend the ground-breaking ceremony in Jamaica in November of 2003. More than two years later, the only (unofficial) information available to FIFA and the Goal Bureau is based on FIFA's own research and some media reports.
This type of conduct cannot be tolerated and shall not be.
Particularly since FIFA is now led to believe that the JFF does not now pursue the construction of a Technical Centre for the benefit of boys, girls, men and women footballers of Jamaica but that instead a villas project - for which FIFA funding appears to be required with urgency - has been earmarked by the JFF executive for acquisition.
What is more disturbing in the context, is that on adjacent land, which cannot be purchased by the JFF and is land of the Munro and Dickenson Trust, the actual football fields shall be leased instead of purchased. Thus, the entire purpose of a JFF-owned technical centre and football facility is rendered impossible.
It seems reasonably irrelevant to the football community to acquire housing, no matter how elegant, if the true purpose of the Goal Stage Two project, namely the purchase, construction and operation of a technical centre with - above all - football facilities, is not guaranteed. A lease of land can never replace the ownership of land in our opinion.
Therefore, and because inexplicably FIFA are still not in possession of any proper documentation whatsoever - despite written warning - we demand to receive detailed, legally relevant and complete information within five working days of receipt of this letter or the FIFA-funded Jamaica Goal Project will be cancelled.
Yours sincerely,
FIFA
Urs Linsi
General Secretary |
Karl |
Edited by - Karl on Jan 20 2006 2:14:19 PM
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FIFA threatens to cancel JFF's Goal Projects funds
