MATTER CLOSED! - Burrell mum on details related to FIFA ban

Capt Burrell announces friendlies, Kappa kit deal

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

JAMAICA Football Federation (JFF) president Captain Horace Burrell, while expressing pleasure at his return to the local governing body, shunned details relating to his recent three-month FIFA suspension, claiming the matter has been declared closed by the world governing body FIFA.

However, Burrell announced a slate of three friendly international matches for the Reggae Boyz; plans to finally renew a kit sponsorship deal with Italian company Kappa; as well as meeting with United Kingdom-based and prospective senior national players.

"It's indeed a very pleasant day for me... because coming off a three-month lay-off, returning to office is really pleasant," Captain Burrell said at a press briefing at the JFF offices last evening.

"Today is a day for telling you exactly how we're going to move forward. We're not going to be speaking a lot about the past because as far as the FIFA is concerned, all that took place in May is now closed — so said the president of FIFA, Joseph 'Sepp' Blatter — and to prove that this is all true, yours truly has been named as a member of the committee responsible for resuscitating the football programmes in the Caribbean.

"I have been named a member of the Normalising Committee, which is indeed an honour for me," added the JFF boss.

Burrell returned to the job at mid-night last Saturday after serving a three-month ban imposed by FIFA's Ethics Committee last October for unspecified violations related to the cash-for-votes scandal that threatened to topple regional football.

Burrell, along with a number of high-ranking Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials, received suspensions in a sweeping move by FIFA, following a meeting in Trinidad last May when FIFA presidential candidate Mohammed bin Hammam met with the CFU membership and was accused of offering US$40,000, plus other gifts, to each association to support him against the incumbent Blatter in the June elections.

Burrell still has three months suspended.

Pressed as to his aspirations for leadership at the CFU and even CONCACAF levels, Burrell replied: "I'm back with renewed energy and will give Jamaica the 'full hundred' first and foremost.

"My first priority is to give Jamaica my full focus, CFU, CONCACAF and FIFA will come after," he said.

He admitted that "everyone who attended the meeting in Trinidad and Tobago regretted that we did, it is not something that we are happy about...but in life things will happen and one hopes to learn from them".

He said the region would be "fractured at this time, but we are now in the rebuilding phase and that's what we're trying to do now".

Meanwhile, Burrell suggested corporate Jamaica was elated at his return to the helm of the local administration, and in short order, he would be making a big announcement.

He identified US$5 million as the budget to prepare the senior squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Finals in Brazil, and announced that the team, which has been idle since last October, will return to competition with three friendlies next month.

The Captain has secured two friendlies with Caribbean neighbours Cuba, slated for the National Stadium on Ash Wednesday, February 22, and two days later at Catherine Hall in Montego Bay.

The team then departs on February 25 for Auckland, New Zealand for a friendly with the host country on the FIFA calendar date of February 29.

New Zealand qualified for the World Cup Finals in South Africa two years ago as the top team from Oceania, and with the fourth-placed CONCACAF team scheduled to oppose the first-placed team from Oceania for a place at the 2014 World Cup Finals in Brazil, Burrell noted this could be a good test for the Boyz, just in case.

For that game, both head coach Theodore Whitmore and the JFF hierarchy are expecting to parade the best available players, including those based in the United Kingdom.

As such Burrell and Horace Reid, the JFF's general secretary, are scheduled to depart the island today for Europe where they are slated to sign a new kit sponsorship deal with Kappa in Italy by Friday, then return to England for a number of meetings with UK-based players, as well as a number of prospective players.

Neither Burrell nor Whitmore was willing to divulge any names of players likely to be contacted. However, Burrell said the aim of the meetings with the players and their clubs was to establish excellent relationships, as they try to minimise the ongoing club-versus-country battle.

The JFF top man also noted that everything will be done to facilitate the Reggae Boyz in preparation for their semi-final round of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers, which are slated to start on June 8. With this in mind the JFF board has accepted a request from Whitmore and his technical staff to engage a number of training camps, including one in Brazil in May, prior to the Boyz's first World Cup Qualifying match against Guatemala here at the National Stadium.

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COMMENTS (2)

claude russell
1/18/2012

So where are the voices expressing indignation at this "arrogance" in thinking that he only has to account to FIFA or Blatter for that matter? Is this really good enough for us? Is he the only one that can run football in Jamaica? WOW!!!!

Anthony II
1/18/2012

The pity is that SHAME as a social control mechanism no longer works in Jamaica, since people seem not to know what actions should cause SHAME. Cases such as these cannot/should not be closed. They should be used to highlight how questionable behavior can cause our downfall. But, in our country, anything goes, I suppose.
.
And while we are at this: Stop saying "first/top priority"; it is a redundancy. If something is a priority, by definition it has to be "first" or "top"; it cannot be second...

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MATTER CLOSED! - Burrell mum on details related to FIFA ban