Having a change of heart on Craig Butler
Despite his rambunctious persona, if one should listen carefully to some of the utterances of Craig Butler, the Phoenix All Star Football Academy boss, you can’t help but accept the fact that he knows a fair bit about football and that, if the right accommodation could be created, he could well make a significant contribution to Jamaica’s football.
I listened to a recent television interview with Butler, in which he was reasonably calm in outlining some of the concerns he has about the existing structure of Jamaica’s football. I must admit, he spoke a lot of uncomfortable truths, which the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) would do well to listen to, unless the federation plans to get swept away in the football revolution, which is emerging on the horizon.
Within recent times, a number of private individuals have been coming to the fore and creating football academies with very ambitious objectives. I strongly believe that, unless the JFF wakes up to the reality of what is happening around them, they might one day discover that they are no more than mere spectators in their game, watching the academies churning out excellent local players for the international market, but not for Jamaica.
In looking at the issues closely, Butler’s beef with the JFF is easy to understand. His sons have been victims of the cruel injustice that has been done to many promising young footballers, who were denied the opportunity to represent Jamaica, not because of ability, but because they are not affiliated to certain clubs and have no connections in the halls of power.
While it is often said that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the more I listen to Butler, is the more I believe that his robust stance in demanding changes in the administration of Jamaica’s football is not because he is power hungry, but having been exposed to ‘best practices’ on the international stage, he has become intolerant of the foolishness he sees happening locally.
VARIOUS NATIONAL PROGRAMME
The beef Butler has with the structure of Jamaica’s football is the same beef every football-loving football administrator in rural Jamaica should have. The people who are selecting the players for the various national programmes, especially at the youth level, are mostly involved with clubs and, usually, according to Jamaican parlance, “Parson christen fe dem pickney fuss.”
I can recall many years ago, legendary sports personality Steve Bucknor getting really mad when a particular youth coach came to St James for what was supposed to be a trial to select young players. However, the coach inadvertently let it slip that what he was really doing was trying to find, one player to fit a particular position, as he had already covered the other positions with players from Kingston.
BLOCKING OPPORTUNITIES
While I might not always agree with the confrontational style of men like Butler and Orville Powell, the Montego Bay United Football Club (MBUFC) boss, I believe voices like theirs are going to change the culture of injustice, which has been plaguing Jamaica’s football and blocking opportunities for players in the areas where no premier league football is being played.
As I have been saying for much of the past two months, like Butler and Powell, the football administrators in rural Jamaica need to wake up from their slumber and begin to use their power to fight for the changes that will open up new doors for rural players. I am sure that there are potential Raheem Sterlings and Leon Baileys all over Jamaica, so we need to start creating the conditions needed to expose them.
If, on his own, Butler can have over 20 players overseas breaking into, or on the verge of breaking into top-flight club football, the question must be, why is Jamaica struggling to find good local talent for our national senior team? The simple answer, in my opinion, is that the age old model of relying on the so-called big clubs in Kingston to produce national players is basically a disaster that has already happened, so it needs to be changed.
As a patriotic Jamaican, I want the best for my country, but like Butler, I am not prepared to endorse the existing system that does not offer equal opportunity to all the players with the potential to excel. Maybe the answer is to, like Butler; refuse to put good players into a bad system because ultimately, it will be a case of doing more harm than good.