THE raw truth is that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is broke. And for those who don’t know, it has been for a while now.

And more worrying is that the situation grows graver each passing day despite the best efforts of its principals to halt the financial decline and find innovative methods to reverse this deadly plunge.

Oh yes, the JFF as a limited liability company could very well be dangling close to the brink of bankruptcy.

With cuts in its government subvention, plus a crippling decline in revenue-earning opportunities, Jamaica’s football has got its back against the wall. The situation is that bad.

Already, the impaled body has been forced to jettison its women’s senior and Olympic programmes in a desperate response to the ugly realities it faces. And how that decision has broken many a Reggae Girl’s heart.

Brace yourselves because more cuts in the programme are quite likely as the Federation executes survival strategies as part of a belt-tightening exercise to keep, at the very least, the ship from running aground.

As frightening as it is, the JFF boss Captain Horace Burrell continues to put on a brave face, vowing to do all in his power to reverse the fortunes of a ship lashed mercilessly by storm surges of the horrific economic climate.

The current state of the JFF finances will inevitably test the leadership mettle of Burrell, and by extension, put the administration on trial in what is an election year.

But key here is how he responds. Burrell needs not be reactionary, but proactive and resolute. More than ever, he needs to show those qualities that distinguish him as leader of business and men.

Already, the race is on as meetings with leaders of corporate business and relevant Government departments have picked up momentum in a manner perhaps never seen before as Burrell and his team prosecute their SOS campaign to source the lifeblood of the material world, money.

It is hoped for the sake of all, a chord is struck at the end of the day.

The soaring debt of $100-plus million, a sum accumulated over successive years, aptly paints a picture of the acuteness of the organisation’s state of affairs.

If one is not yet crafted, now is the time for the JFF to put a proposal on the table as to how it will tackle the conflict of reducing its huge debt and, parallel to that, raise scarce money.

For we know that it requires something in the neighbourhood of a miracle to balance the books at this time — with the bank overdrafts, loan repayment portfolios, external debts, failure to timely meet salary schedules, outstanding taxes and so on.

What the JFF faces is not unique in a true sense of what confronts mainstream business today. It’s how it responds to the crisis that will ultimately determine the outcome.

Sadly and detrimentally, a promising income stream has been abruptly cut off by the Reggae Boyz’s World Cup qualification failure, as hundreds of millions of dollars in potential earnings went out the window.

And a year later, the JFF is still paying the price.

Out of tournament, the Boyz would strategically look to stage big games for income generation, especially at their Kingston fortress, the National Stadium.

But without money — or at least the commitment of it — the JFF cannot begin to attempt to secure matches against crowd-pulling opposition, certainly not in a World Cup year. And their far from appealing FIFA ranking of 77th does not help the cause.

But whatever contingency it comes up with to turn things around, the JFF should engage the people in the process, giving them a stake by being open and honest. As passionate lovers of football, we should not only share in its success, but also its tribulation.

In the final analysis, a healthy football product is of great benefit to us all, especially for the less privileged among us, some of whom have had life-changing experiences through the sport.

So numerous, it is now not easy to keep count of male players who have gone abroad to play in the professional leagues, and the many women footballers who have earned scholarships to colleges and universities in the USA — turning their lives around beyond their wildest dreams.

As far as I am concerned, there is no system of measure to truly quantify the impact this beautiful sport has had on the rapidly decaying social fabric of Jamaica.

Therefore, corporate Jamaica and the state ought to look more seriously at sports as a paradigm of social change, and not only as a pastime for young people to compare athletic abilities.

With that, I urge big business to come to the rescue of the nation’s most widely played sport, for they would be in effect investing in the consumers of the products and services they sell.

And for those businesses that have stayed true to the programme, I lift my hat to them.