The JFF must show KSAFA who’s boss
Over the past many years, I have been using this column to express my longheld view that the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) is one of the greatest impediments to the growth and development of Jamaica’s football because of its attitude towards rural Jamaica.
In fact, I was so petrified by the prospect of KSAFA getting a fresh burst of parochial energy that when Stewart Stephenson offered himself to lead the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) after the death of Captain Horace Burrell, although I know him to be a highly competent administrator, I did not support him out of fear that KSAFA would not allow him to be fair to the rural parishes. While I have some reservations about JFF boss Michael Ricketts, I must commend the efforts of his administration to level the playing field with regard to the new promotion play-off system for the Red Stripe Premier League (RSPL), which will open new opportunities for parishes like St Thomas, which, in my opinion, is finally in position to get the recognition it should have been getting over the years.
LOSING POWER
I have noticed that KSAFA is so infuriated by the prospect of losing some of its power that the association’s president, Wayne Shaw, has declared that he is ready to defy the JFF and refuse to participate in the competition because, according to him, the new promotion play-off system is a way to “mash up KSAFA”.
It should be noted that, this very same KSAFA was only too happy to participate in the 2017/18 so-called RSPL, in which it had seven of the 12 competing teams and was totally unconcerned that this competition, which is being passed off as a bona fide national competition, only features teams from five of the 14 parishes.
Based on what I have heard from Shaw and veteran KSAFA administrator Carvel Stewart, the association is seemingly not only fully prepared to defy the JFF with regard to the new play-off system but is seemingly toying with the idea of doing its own thing, which confirms my longstanding belief that KSAFA has little or no regard for the JFF.
Thankfully, because of the new FIFA stipulation that has made the 14 parish associations the real power brokers in the JFF, there is no longer a situation where the federation is overloaded by persons from KSAFA who had voting rights, which made it easy for them to outvote their rural counterparts on issues they did not like.
Now that KSAFA has decided to show its true colours in this latest act of defiance, I hope that the rural parish associations will finally sum up the required courage to get rid of the RSPL and bring in the franchise system, which Burrell wanted to introduce but was blocked at every turn by KSAFA, which saw it as a way of taking away some of their power.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
I believe that the time has come for the JFF administration to start opening up real opportunities for the rural parishes so that in a few years, Carvel Stewart will no longer be able to say that KSAFA is flourishing because, “KSAFA has undertaken more development programmes than any other parish association and maybe by all other associations put together”.
We need to finally start creating a level playing field in national football so that the rural footballers of the future will not have to suffer the fate suffered by talented players such as St Ann’s Anthony ‘Jumbo’ Donaldson, Manchester’s Garfield Plummer, Hanover’s Linton ‘Conch’ Stewart, St James’ Kenneth ‘Blacks’ Gaynor, and Trelawny’s Shane Crawford, who would have represented Jamaica many times had they been given the same opportunities as KSAFA players.
I am waiting patiently to see if the JFF will bow to what I consider a calculated KSAFA bluff and allow them to have their way this time again. A few years ago, the Montego Bay United Football Club chose to defy the JFF, and despite some amount of public support for their cause, they were made to face the full wrath of the JFF disciplinary committee. Let us see if KSAFA will be treated in the same way if they keep up their defiance.