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TIME FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO RUN THE JFF
There is no doubt that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has benefited from the leadership of Captain Horace Burrell.
Capt. Burrell has run the JFF for about 13 years, from 1994 to 2003 and after a four-year break, again since 2007. Under his leadership Jamaica became the first English-speaking Caribbean nation to qualify for the FIFA World Cup back in 1998. The country has also qualified for the Under-17 World Cup as well. Under his leadership Jamaica has also seen a clear plan of action for raising the standard of play of local players, referees, and coaches. Under Capt Burrell’s leadership Jamaica has also seen a growing number of players sign professional contracts overseas. Currently, Jamaican home-grown players are representing clubs in the US major league, the English Premier League and in leagues all across the world from South America to Asia. Also among the captain’s other achievements is the setting up of a football academy on the grounds of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus under the FIFA GOAL Project that was designed to aid in the development of the sport based on the specific needs of national associations.
A lot of what Capt Burrell has accomplished came about because of his vision and his close association with some of the most powerful men in the sport namely former Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Austin Jack Warner and the controversial president of FIFA Joseph Sepp Blatter. Ironically, it is the break down of the relationship between his two powerful friends that seems likely to cause the captain his job as president of the JFF.
Earlier this year during the build up to the FIFA elections when Blatter was being challenged by Qatar’s Mohammed Bin Hammam of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Warner invited federation heads from across the region to hear the Qatari’s administrator’s manifesto. As it turns out those federation heads got a bit more than they bargained for – US$40,000 in brown envelopes – money that by all indications was intended to ‘buy’ votes for Bin Hamman. This vote-buying scheme was exposed by CONCACAF General Secretary and since Blatter retained his presidency at the end of May, the fall out has been devastating.
Bin Hamman appeared before FIFA’s Ethics Committee and has been banned for life. An investigation was launched into Warner’s role in the whole affair, an investigation that was eventually halted because Warner resigned his Caribbean Football Union presidency. But the digging didn’t stop. Investigators were ordered to question CFU members, Capt Burrell included, who had attended the meeting in May. Then just days ago, the Daily Telegraph released a videotape of Warner telling those who attended the meeting in May, not to make their ‘gifts’ seem like they were coming from Bin Hamman. Forty eight hours later news broke that Capt Burrell was among several members of the CFU who were either banned or warned because of their involvement in whatever happened down in Trinidad last May.
Burrell was banned from all football activities for six months with three months suspended but he will be on probation for two years. He has accepted the ban claiming that it was because he refused to cooperate with FIFA investigators who had been assigned to probe the bribery scandal that had already claimed the football careers of Bin Hamman and Warner.
Burrell has now been tainted by this scandal by virtue of this suspension.
Burrell was at the meeting in Trinidad and says he did not receive any money and while no one knows for sure the extent of his involvement in the scandal we do know that he was one of four persons to be banned by FIFA. This suggests that FIFA’s Ethics Committee – based on evidence gleaned by their investigators – believe Burrell’s involvement to be significant enough to warrant a six-month suspension.
Now as Burrell tries to raise almost a billion Jamaican dollars to fund Jamaica’s 2014 World Cup campaign, he will be haunted by the stigma of this suspension. Will sponsors feel comfortable trusting a JFF under Burrell’s leadership with hundreds of millions of dollars? Will FIFA, on this campaign to rid the sport of corruption, be comfortable enough to continue to lend support to the JFF with Burrell and his General Secretary Horace Reid, who was among those warned, at the helm?
It is for these reasons and more why Burrell should do the honourable thing and walk away from the leadership of the JFF. If he truly cares about Jamaica’s football he needs to demonstrate that he too is willing to break the stranglehold of corruption by removing himself from the presidency. As head of the JFF, the buck stops with him. It is still unclear, for example, that since Burrell insists that he did not get money from Bin Hamman whether or not anyone else from Jamaica did. No one has spoken definitively on the matter and as long as there are questions like that to be answered, Burrell’s presidency will continue to exist under the cloud of suspicion.
That is why he needs to walk
away.
The JFF needs to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. For the sake of football it is the only way to go forward.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=871
There is no doubt that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has benefited from the leadership of Captain Horace Burrell.
Capt. Burrell has run the JFF for about 13 years, from 1994 to 2003 and after a four-year break, again since 2007. Under his leadership Jamaica became the first English-speaking Caribbean nation to qualify for the FIFA World Cup back in 1998. The country has also qualified for the Under-17 World Cup as well. Under his leadership Jamaica has also seen a clear plan of action for raising the standard of play of local players, referees, and coaches. Under Capt Burrell’s leadership Jamaica has also seen a growing number of players sign professional contracts overseas. Currently, Jamaican home-grown players are representing clubs in the US major league, the English Premier League and in leagues all across the world from South America to Asia. Also among the captain’s other achievements is the setting up of a football academy on the grounds of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus under the FIFA GOAL Project that was designed to aid in the development of the sport based on the specific needs of national associations.
A lot of what Capt Burrell has accomplished came about because of his vision and his close association with some of the most powerful men in the sport namely former Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Austin Jack Warner and the controversial president of FIFA Joseph Sepp Blatter. Ironically, it is the break down of the relationship between his two powerful friends that seems likely to cause the captain his job as president of the JFF.
Earlier this year during the build up to the FIFA elections when Blatter was being challenged by Qatar’s Mohammed Bin Hammam of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Warner invited federation heads from across the region to hear the Qatari’s administrator’s manifesto. As it turns out those federation heads got a bit more than they bargained for – US$40,000 in brown envelopes – money that by all indications was intended to ‘buy’ votes for Bin Hamman. This vote-buying scheme was exposed by CONCACAF General Secretary and since Blatter retained his presidency at the end of May, the fall out has been devastating.
Bin Hamman appeared before FIFA’s Ethics Committee and has been banned for life. An investigation was launched into Warner’s role in the whole affair, an investigation that was eventually halted because Warner resigned his Caribbean Football Union presidency. But the digging didn’t stop. Investigators were ordered to question CFU members, Capt Burrell included, who had attended the meeting in May. Then just days ago, the Daily Telegraph released a videotape of Warner telling those who attended the meeting in May, not to make their ‘gifts’ seem like they were coming from Bin Hamman. Forty eight hours later news broke that Capt Burrell was among several members of the CFU who were either banned or warned because of their involvement in whatever happened down in Trinidad last May.
Burrell was banned from all football activities for six months with three months suspended but he will be on probation for two years. He has accepted the ban claiming that it was because he refused to cooperate with FIFA investigators who had been assigned to probe the bribery scandal that had already claimed the football careers of Bin Hamman and Warner.
Burrell has now been tainted by this scandal by virtue of this suspension.
Burrell was at the meeting in Trinidad and says he did not receive any money and while no one knows for sure the extent of his involvement in the scandal we do know that he was one of four persons to be banned by FIFA. This suggests that FIFA’s Ethics Committee – based on evidence gleaned by their investigators – believe Burrell’s involvement to be significant enough to warrant a six-month suspension.
Now as Burrell tries to raise almost a billion Jamaican dollars to fund Jamaica’s 2014 World Cup campaign, he will be haunted by the stigma of this suspension. Will sponsors feel comfortable trusting a JFF under Burrell’s leadership with hundreds of millions of dollars? Will FIFA, on this campaign to rid the sport of corruption, be comfortable enough to continue to lend support to the JFF with Burrell and his General Secretary Horace Reid, who was among those warned, at the helm?
It is for these reasons and more why Burrell should do the honourable thing and walk away from the leadership of the JFF. If he truly cares about Jamaica’s football he needs to demonstrate that he too is willing to break the stranglehold of corruption by removing himself from the presidency. As head of the JFF, the buck stops with him. It is still unclear, for example, that since Burrell insists that he did not get money from Bin Hamman whether or not anyone else from Jamaica did. No one has spoken definitively on the matter and as long as there are questions like that to be answered, Burrell’s presidency will continue to exist under the cloud of suspicion.
That is why he needs to walk
away.
The JFF needs to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. For the sake of football it is the only way to go forward.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=871
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