Editorial | Holding the JFF to account

This newspaper continues to believe that the more appropriate path for the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) would have been to disband itself, opening the way for the creation of a new, transparently managed organisation with competent leadership.

With that overhaul, as we suggested previously, the elected honchos of the JFF, except for the professional staff, would become ineligible for leadership posts in national football for at least a decade, and thereafter be subject to fit-and-proper tests before any return to leadership.

Unfortunately, The Gleaner’s rational position didn’t carry the day. Instead, under pressure from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the global sport’s governing body, and the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), of which Jamaica is a member, the JFF has overhauled its constitution to add more members and expand the number of people who choose the boss and underlings. That, given the constitutional changes agreed to this week, will increase electors from a coterie of 13 presidents of parish associations to 56 delegates.

We suspect, too, that it was the insistence of FIFA and CONCACAF that caused the hiring of Dennis Chung, a respected accountant and corporate executive, as the JFF’s general secretary, to replace Dalton Wint, during whose gaffe-prone tenure the organisation stumbled from crisis to crisis.

REMAIN UNCONVINCED

Though we remain unconvinced, we will allow the JFF the benefit of the doubt that it can rescue itself and become an organisation capable of managing the orderly development of football, from a directionless mass sport to a structured movement which delivers its best on the global stage.

This won’t happen if the JFF is left to its own devices. That is why we insist that the institutions that finance the federation, especially the Sports Development Foundation (SDF), which uses taxpayers’ money, must set benchmarks for deliverables, against which the JFF must be assessed before receiving our money. Private sector companies should act similarly.

Indeed, we propose that domestic funders of the federation establish a Football Oversight Council, coordinated by the SDF, to establish deliverables and monitor performance.

These need not conflict with the JFF’s obligations as a member of FIFA. Where there is a potential clash that can’t be resolved through negotiations, the JFF has the right to make a choice, including forfeiting domestic resources.

There is a basis for action. Mr Ricketts wants Jamaica to qualify for the next World Cup, which would be an expensive endeavour.

When it happened in 1998, the late Captain Horace Burrell, with a surfeit of energy and charisma, rallied government and private sector money behind a movement to ensure success. It happened despite the weak domestic football structure. Burrell couldn’t repeat the feat leading up to the 2004 World Cup.

He lost the JFF presidency in 2003, but returned in 2007. Burrell soon engineered the constitutional changes that slashed the number of JFF voting delegates from more than 100 to 13.

On the face of it, with fewer voting members, it was easier to control the JFF. There was less likelihood of wildcat actions.

Captain Burrell died in office in 2017. His successor, Michael Ricketts, hasn’t demonstrated the skills as an institutional builder that was lacking in Captain Burrell. And nor does he possess Burrell’s qualities for charismatic leadership.

STATE OF FOOTBALL

Fundamentally, Jamaica’s football exists in a state somewhere between suspended animation and sporting purgatory. Its main suit has quarrels, bungling and mishaps, such as the fiasco over returning the national men’s team from a CONCACAF Nations League tournament match in Suriname; its fee quarrels with teams and coaches; and the demand by the men’s team that the previous general secretary, Mr Wint, be dismissed. Which, constructively, he was.

Perhaps Mr Ricketts should be given credit for acquiescing to the demands for the constitutional reforms. That, however, isn’t a sufficient condition for transformation and for creating the foundation from which Jamaica’s football can become a relatively viable enterprise, capable of supporting structured campaigns on the global front, rather than haphazard, hit or miss efforts. Sponsors of the sport have leverage.

Technically, with $280,000 in capital reserves and an accumulated deficit of $132.4 million, the JFF is insolvent.

Its auditors had this to say of its 2021 financial accounts: “The preparation of the financial statements in accordance with IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) assumes that the company will continue operations for the foreseeable future. This means, in part, that the statement of profit or loss and other comprehensive income and the statement of financial position assume no intention or necessity to liquidate or curtail the scale of the company’s operations. This is commonly referred to as the going concern basis.

“Continuation as a going concern, therefore, may be in doubt and is dependent on obtaining continued financial support from sponsors and donors...”

Donors and sponsors must insist on a professionally and transparent organisation that meets performance criteria to receive money. Among the demands should be a restructuring of football clubs to remove their control from politically exposed persons, whose grip on the clubs feed the perception of the “garrisonisation” of the sport and the limiting of fan support.