HANOVER, Jamaica – Michael Ricketts was on Sunday reelected president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) after beating back the challenge of his former vice-president Raymond Anderson 39-17, at the JFF’s annual general meeting held at the Royalton Negril.

After being postponed at the last moment because of a court injunction taken out by Beach Soccer’s Pat Garrell after they were left off the list of affiliates, Ricketts, who was first elected in 2017, won by a decisive margin of 22 votes with all 56 delegates voting.

Ricketts’ slate will include Gregory Daley – president of the St James FA, Elaine Walker-Brown of St Catherine, Raymond Grant of Portland, Barry Watson of Manchester along with former vice president Bruce Gaynor and JFF Technical Committee Chairman Rudolph Speid.

He said they got the mandate because, “we had persons who are involved in football, who were doing the work at the parish level, so they would have gotten the support.

“And that was translated into votes, but we did a lot of work, we are deserving of it but we want to just stay focused, we want to stay humble as we have a massive repair job to do, because the football was brought into disrepute, a multiplicity of times.”

Anderson, who was one of the longest-serving executive of the JFF, did not stay to speak to the media afterwards but Carole Beckford who was on his slate told Jamaica Observer Online “The delegates wanted Mr Ricketts and his team back in the office and they have done so. What I think has happened though is, I think we have made enough impacts on how football is governed and how it’s run that they will have to have a serious talk about all sports.”

-Paul A Reid