THE FIFA Goal Project underway on lands at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) is being done at great "self-sacrifice" to the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), suggested a top official.

The US$400,000 that was made available to erect Phase One of the project was actually money diverted from the annual FIFA subvention of US$250,000 which is paid to all member associations.

"What this means is that the money for 2010 was debited from our accounts and instead paid directly to contractors Tank-Weld Limited," JFF president Captain Horace Burrell explained.

This was said to be a "special arrangement" with FIFA as the JFF's anxiety grew in getting their first Goal Project off the ground after two failed attempts to construct an academy/training centre.

Under Burrell's stewardship, ground was first broken in 2003 at a site in Portmore, St Catherine, but was later abandoned by the new Crenston Boxhill administration who deemed it unsuitable for a football academy.

The new JFF team then acquired a three-acre spread of land in the hilly interior community of Malvern in St Elizabeth and started construction of a dormitory-type facility after the FIFA Goal Bureau remitted the money to kick off the project.

Uncompleted and the funds exhausted, the work stalled. In 2007 when Burrell returned to the helm of the JFF for a second stint, he toured the facility with FIFA vice-president Austin 'Jack' Warner, with the latter expressing "grave disappointment" with the location of the site and the state of the development.

Warner's intervention led to FIFA ordering that the project be discontinued and that the property -- with three incomplete main buildings -- be sold.

The Malvern property was put on the open market in early 2008 at an asking price of J$45 million, but it proved a hard sell until Government last week announced it had purchased it for the Ministry of Education to be used as a "special school" for problematic students.

"We were instructed by FIFA to dispose of it before the UWI project could start, but we were able to work something out with FIFA," Burrell said.

The FIFA subvention of US$250,000 (about $22 million) is crucial to the operations of a cash-strapped and heavily-indebted JFF said to be in the red of about $100 million, but the local football body decided to make the sacrifice as they are in a desperate bid to make up ground on a number of other small footballing nations who are on their second and third Goal Project.

Set to be completed by September 30 after work started in April, Phase One of the six-acre UWI project will include a "first-class" training field, changing room facilities for players, referees' quarters, equipment room and temporary security fencing.

At the completion of Phase One, Burrell said his administration will immediately apply for Phase Two, which is expected to have an additional floor to the existing structure. This will house an office for the technical staff, a presentation room, a kitchenette and a second playing field.

And as the development continues with the aim of having a total technical training centre similar to what obtains in big football-playing nations, the JFF plans to apply for Phase Three, which will have a perimeter wall and floodlights. Phase Four, which is expected to follow closely, will consist of dormitories.

"The FIFA works hand in hand with the national associations, so once you complete one phase they're ready to assist with another...

"They will not approve another phase until the previous one is completed and we intend to keep rolling, having been beset by problems in the past," Burrell explained.