Bleak outlook
Harbour View Chairman Stewart takes dim view on delayed start to football season
DESPITE the optimism being shown in some quarters of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), Carvel Stewart, a former vice-chairman of the now defunct Premier League Clubs Association (PLCA), is of an opposite view regarding the possibility of there being a proper Premier League season for 2020-2021.
Stewart, who was of the view in May that cancellation of the 2019-2020 season was a bad idea, believes that that decision is now coming to haunt the sport’s local governing body, the JFF.
“[It’s] very distressing. As you recall, I was very critical of the decision to cancel all football and it was so because we had made efforts to restart and complete what was outstanding in one month, the month of July. It was not to be because people got together and came up with a decision to cancel the football,” he said.
The Harbour View FC chairman believes that completion of the 20192020 season would have provided the necessary “template” to have a full season for 2020-2021.
“The view I hold is that had we been able to continue pursuing the different bodies that we had started the communications with and eventually completed the 2019-2020 season, we would have developed a template around which the league could have been restarted,” Stewart posited.
“Of course, in the absence of that, there hasn’t been anything satisfactor, it would appear. There are no decisions of a time and a date or a start or system to commence the new season,” he added.
Stewart also spoke of the impact the indecision has been having on persons within his club.
“As I sit here, I am confident that we won’t have a 2020-21 season because 2020 is more or less complete now and it’s unlikely you’re going to hear that you are going to start anytime soon. Therefore, it’s very distressing. We’ve have had youngsters and coaches and managers who we’ve had to, more or less, keep in train and enable to have some semblance of a livelihood, while there is nothing coming in, nothing to enable any further financing of the effort itself. And so, I wait to see what is to come but I am not optimistic,” Stewart said in his bleak outlook on the immediate future of the league.
He cited examples of European countries that were hard hit by the COVID-19 virus which are now successfully running their leagues.
“Football could have been continued under the right circumstances had there not been this almighty rush to cancel it, for whatever reason they went ahead and cancelled it.
“Now having cancelled it, they are unable to and unaware of how to restart it, and all you hear is they are waiting on the Government now. No, you should have been able to advise the Government and provide examples for the Government, because this has happened in worse-hit countries in the world.
“Look at what was happening in Spain and Germany and Italy – and they were able to complete and continue. Far less was happening here and had we given the example of completing the football when it could have been played, we would have been in a far better position now,” Stewart noted.
“As I said before…it’s like a shot in the dark for the ministry, because there was no template on which they would have been presented with a viable solution to the issues and the problems. Had they [JFF] not cancelled, which is why I was saying it was premature and amateurish at the time, had they not cancelled the football we would have had a methodology set out that could have represented to say here is what we did, here is what didn’t work, here is what worked and we are now proposing that we continue with this.
“I am pessimistic that we will have football for 2020-21 under the normal time frame that there is,” he ended.
Stewart’s pessimism about the restart of football appears to be of merit, as word came from the Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton on Wednesday that there would be no football for the rest of 2020.