Directors shun JFF meeting

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

Sunday's Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) board of directors' meeting had to be abandoned after the quorum requirements were not met, with officials reportedly staying away after it made the rounds that at least one confederation was planning to use the opportunity to examine issues related to banned president, Captain Horace Burrell, and general secretary, Horace Reid.

Burrell is currently serving a three-month ban from all football-related matters for his role in the cash-for-vote scandal involving former FIFA presidential hopeful Mohamed bin Hammam and one-time CONCACAF and Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president, Austin 'Jack' Warner.

The incident surrounds a meeting in Trinidad and Tobago with bin Hammam, Warner and CFU officials during the build-up to the FIFA presidential elections earlier this year.

Reid was also warned by FIFA in the aftermath of that now infamous meeting.

It is understood that the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) - the island's most powerful confederation - had requested at an internal gathering last week that its representatives at the JFF board of directors' meeting demand the full details of the CFU meeting from Reid and Jamaica's other representative in Trinidad and Tobago, Bruce Gaynor.

The KSAFA representatives, it is understood, were also asked to request that a letter be sent to FIFA calling for the full details of Burrell's ban.

These are issues which will, however, remain unresolved, at least for now.

Failed mission

The fact-finding mission failed to get off the ground as besides three KSAFA reps, Rudolph Speid (president), Ricky Chin (first vice-president) and Jackie Cowan (treasurer), only stand-in JFF president Dale Spencer, Reid and two JFF staff members turned up for the meeting.

"We turned up for the board meeting on Sunday at 11 a.m. and there were only two other personnel at the meeting and we are at a loss, because in my experience it's the first I am seeing something like this," said Speid, KSAFA's president. "We waited for over an hour and nobody else turned up."

Some 33 members were expected to be present, with at least 15 persons needed to constitute a meeting.

Spencer, while expressing extreme disappointment that the meeting was not held, would not speak to the reasons behind same, pointing instead to other opportunities that may arise for the discussion.

The JFF's first vice-president said yesterday that besides the Burrell issue, the meeting was necessary to deliberate the 'fate' of Reid, an employee of the federation, as well as to send a message of unity to the nation.

"This is disappointing for more reasons than one. We had some very important issues to deal with as a board of directors," Spencer said. "The meeting was convened with adequate notice, it was an important meeting for the directors to carry out their responsibilities.

"Prior to the meeting, I had circulated an email stating that the nation, including our financial and other supporters, expect and deserve that the board of directors should meet and leave the meeting with a unified position in the interest of Jamaican football, so you can understand my disappointment," said Spencer, chairman of the South Central confederation.

He added: "Unlike the situation where the president is elected by the congress and his fate, so to speak, would be determined by the general membership, the general secretary, who was warned, is an employee of the federation and so I was looking forward to the directors coming forward and giving us some guidance on that issue. By contract and by statute, that position is the responsibility of the board of directors."

In reference to the reports of the expected KSAFA inquiry, Spencer said: "I never heard that, so I wouldn't comment on that, because it wasn't put forward to me. I came to the meeting expecting that the directors would come and carry out their responsibilities."

The next JFF board of directors' meeting will to be convened at the end of January, when the matters at hand are expected to be brought up.

However, the interim chief is not ruling out the possibility of an extraordinary meeting before then.

"If there is the need to convene a management committee meeting, I will do that," he pointed out.