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published: Wednesday | September 13, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
The insurgency at the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) continues unabated. Same plot, same principals, even if it is not always the same voice or same hands that are at play. It's the Jacob and Esau syndrome.
We might have found the process, and its predictability, slightly amusing and, at worst, mildly distracting, except that it highlights a vulgarity and crassness that is, to say the least, nauseating. Personal ambition and ego have trumped decency.
This newspaper is not enamoured with Creston Boxhill, the president of the JFF. Neither are we taken with some of the characters with whom he surrounded himself on his way to the presidency. Indeed, Mr. Boxhill lacks charisma and there are those who may assume a congruence between the cadence of his speech and his manipulation of ideas.
But whatever our, and other people's views of Mr. Boxhill, he enjoyed the will of the majority, however slim it may have been. And as the result of Sunday's latest challenge to his leadership confirmed, he continues to do so.
Of course, we do not question the right of members of an organisation to question and to attempt to unseat its leadership. It is called democracy - if they play by the rules.
But there is a point when such actions are not really democratic challenges but guerrilla action at overthrow and move from the realm of the permissible to the indecent. That is how we feel about those who having not prevailed with the battering rams have resorted to consistent sniping at the JFF.
Even before the Boxhill regime had settled into office the undermining and politicking began. There appeared to be an international cabal at work.
Adversaries were shunted into significant positions in hemispheric and international football, helping them to maintain high profiles and to fuel the perception that they can impact the flow of largesse.
The timing of visits to Jamaica by international football bigwigs on the eve of the JFF congress at which Boxhill prevailed was, indeed, suspect. The announcement of projects by the previous regime was less than subtle. Then there were the 'coincidences' of complaints by FIFA of this or that action of the JFF on the eve of subsequent congresses at which the insurgents were to mount anti-Boxhill challenges.
Rather than settling down to deal with the business of Jamaican football, this JFF executive has been preoccupied with self-preservation, forced into the preparing for the next challenge, which is always just around the corner. The demand of the snipers is now for elections to be held a year early, in January. They lost on Sunday, but warned of a new attack in a fortnight.
They may eventually wear down Boxhill's crowd. They will then have the leadership of the JFF. And perhaps they will have better ideas and greater intellect to pursue their programme. Yet we doubt that, in the circumstance, they can achieve much, unless they believe that there are persons with mountains of cash ready to chuck at Jamaican football.
We remind the insurgents of the Jamaican saying that the knife that sticks a sheep can also stick a goat. It is not particularly difficult for anyone with the desire, and a little backing, to create an environment of instability. </DIV>
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