The Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) is preparing to amend its articles of association and its bylaws to get in line with FIFA regulations by November 1, 2022.

The federation has a process of electing its executive body by a process of voting that is determined by the presidents of its football associations (FAs) at the parochial level. This means that all that is needed to enact change within the JFF is the majority of 13 votes, since the parishes of Kingston and St Andrew fall under one association, KSAFA.

This change was made by former JFF president, the late Captain Horace Burrell, and saw a reduction in the number of delegates from 130.

Although the date of the meeting on this matter has not yet been set by JFF President Michael Ricketts, these plans have been discussed since 2020, when a FIFA official visited the island and proposed the changes.

Raymond Grant, who is the Portland FA president and by extension a JFF director, says that the meeting will seek to ratify a number of structural changes at the JFF that are not limited to the number of delegates at its congress.

“There will also be an increase in the number of affiliates to the football fraternity,” he said.

“This will include more voices from the clubs playing at the national level. Once there’s a vested interest in the sport, and the regulation is there that we will draft, you will be accorded membership in the federation and have a voice at the congress,” said Grant, a former JFF general secretary.

One of the key principles driving these proposals is to get more stakeholders of the sport involved in the decision making at the highest level. This would mean that in addition to the FA presidents, parish referees associations, and coaches at the various levels in the local game would also become active in the democratic process.

However, this raises the question of conflicts of interest that arise as a result of a quirk of Jamaican football, which sees individuals playing similar or various roles at different teams across the island. An example of this is where a JFF director may also be a coach of a club, or a coach employed to more than one team in different competitions, especially at different levels of the game.

But Grant says that this has already been considered, although a solution has not yet been found.

“We are looking over the regulations,” he said. “It is not yet signed off. We are aware that we will have these overlaps. It will be addressed in the document. That is not yet signed off on, so I don’t want to speak from an affirmative position on that matter until we have concluded those discussions. We foresee that there will be overlaps and we have to put systems and measures in place to prevent that.”

Ricketts had previously said that he is looking forward to these reforms and Grant says that he expects overwhelming support for this change from the various stakeholders.

“From all discussions that we have been having over the last six months, I am pretty confident that the full support is there. We recognise that there is a need for change. It is the same parish associations and members who would have changed the constitution, in 2015, from where it was to where it is now. The membership of the board that made those changes in 2015 is the same, apart from maybe two members. So the process of change is nothing new to them and I expect that there will be no difference and the full support of the membership will be on board to change it to the new structure,” Grant told the Observer.