President Michael Ricketts says the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) will take whatever legal measures necessary to defend itself against unsubstantiated criticism that affects its reputation.

Ricketts’ comments are in response to an article in another newspaper last month in which Phoenix All-Star Football Academy founder Craig Butler criticised the JFF’s selection policies.

Ricketts says the JFF has a right to defend itself and defend the integrity of its members, and that Dennis Chung, who was recently appointed general secretary, will be proactive in this regard.

“When people just seem to be on a war path trying to destroy the JFF and trying to destroy individuals inside the JFF, then we do have a right to defend ourselves,” Ricketts told the Jamaica Observer.

“This general secretary is gonna be very strident in this regard. I’m pretty sure that he will not sit by and just allow people to just frivolously say things that are unfounded about the JFF. All this does is destroy the integrity. So I’m sure the general secretary will be defending the JFF, and certainly, we must put an end to these unfounded and unfair comments.”

JFF has contacted Butler via a letter, seeking proof of his claims and had given him until November 7 to provide his evidence.

But Butler has still not provided such a response. The Observer reached out to Butler but received no response.

Ricketts says the JFF, however, has no issue with criticism of its policies or operations, as long as they are fair and can be supported by evidence.

“We have no problem,” he said. “In the name of democracy, we welcome criticism, and the general secretary and myself have an open-door policy that we are willing to accommodate anybody who wants to come in and sit down and discuss with us, and discuss the future of the sport.

“This is bigger than all of us. So, we want to ensure that we impact the nation, not just because we want the little boys and little girls to play, but we must, down the road, see positive implications, the remittance services must be impacted. Players must get contracts, players must be admitted to universities overseas. We must socially impact the nation,” Ricketts said.

At press time last evening the Observer failed to get comments as calls to Butler’s cellphones went unanswered.