March 15 – The Jamaican Football Federation (JFF) will hold the postponed election for president on Sunday (March 17), with incumbent Michael Ricketts going head-head with challenger Raymond Anderson, currently the JFF’s first vice-president.
Rickets took over as JFF president in 2017 but his reign has at times been controversial locally.
His men’s team have qualified for the final four of Concacaf’s Nations League next week, though his women’s team that performed to world acclaim at the Women’s World Cup, fell out with Ricketts over the withholding of their World Cup player bonuses given by FIFA, and the failure of Ricketts to sanction a high level national team training programme, and pulled out en masse from the inaugural W Gold Cup that has just completed.
Anderson, who is campaigning under a ‘Real Solid Action’ banner, has accused Ricketts of trying to rig the presidential election, and via appeal to the Jamaican courts had the January 14 election postponed.
The postponement followed a request for a mandatory injunction to be imposed by Jamaica’s Supreme Court allowing Patricia Garel, president of Beach Soccer Jamaica, to participate in the upcoming election of JFF officers.
The court refused to impose the injunction but did order an interim injunction be put in place for a period of 28 days pending further determination by the Court.
Garel argues that the JFF gave recognition to Beach Soccer when it was invited to send three representatives to the congress on September 24 last year, and that this is reflected in the minutes of the JFF. Beach Soccer Jamaica is recognised by Beach Soccer Worldwide, an affiliate of FIFA.
However, after seemingly recognising Garel’s organisation, a separate Beach Soccer organisation was created under the name Beach Football Association of Jamaica. That organisation is co-chaired by JFF vice president Bruce Gaynor, and another director of JFF, Patrick Malcolm.
The JFF granted it the right to represent beach football in Jamaica and to have voting rights. Garel was booted out the congress and into unrecognised status as a result.
This is where the plot thickens and Anderson’s argument that Ricketts was rigging the election holds weight. In the voting Congress that should have been held, Gaynor is a member of Rickett’s election slate of officials. In effect, by granting Gaynor’s new beach soccer entity voting rights, Ricketts was ultimately guaranteeing his presidential election another vote in what is a fairly evenly split electorate.
Anderson says that if he wins the election, he and his team (both candidates have a slate of supporters going head-to-head for other positions) will rebrand the JFF, bringing a focus on youth development, financial stability, the women’s game, stakeholder trust and infrastructure.
With Ricketts voters can probably expect more of the same – a mix of the good, bad and, too often, the ugly. But Ricketts probably has the edge over Anderson when it comes to presentation skills.
Speaking to the Jamaica Observer last week Ricketts said: “I seem to be getting more traction the longer the thing is drawn out because people have been getting frustrated and are understanding that what the persons on the other side are doing is hurting the sport.”
Anderson responded: “We’re not wrong in terms of calling out on people adhering to the constitution and things like that. The stakeholders at large are getting more confident in us because what we are saying is correct up to now.”
On Thursday next week Jamaica meet USA in the semi-finals of the Nations League in Arlington, Texas. Before that the federation has another battle to work through.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1732383879labto1732383879ofdlr1732383879owedi1732383879sni@n1732383879osloh1732383879cin.l1732383879uap1732383879