AS Dennis Chung reportedly prepares to leave his position as general secretary of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), respected football administrators Tony James and Carvel Stewart believe that he has achieved considerable progress, though admitting he made some mistakes along the way.

The Jamaica Observer has been reliably informed that Chung, a chartered accountant and noted financial and economic executive, is set to resign from his post at the end of the month, six months before the expiration of his contract.

While Chung hasn’t made his plans to resign public and has been unavailable for comment, the Observer has learnt that the administrator is satisfied he has met the objectives he set out to achieve since taking over the job from Dalton Wint in November 2022, and is now looking to move on from his current role.

James, former president of the JFF and Concacaf executive committee member, says Chung’s performance over the three years have been exceptional.

“If you look at where the JFF is now, you have to give him credit as the singular reason for this board’s election to this position that they now hold — [because] without him turning the JFF around it wouldn’t be possible,” James told the
Jamaica Observer.

“Financially, he has been the FIFA liaison or connection in ensuring that all their mandates have been carried out. And that isn’t an easy job, because people tend to expect the JFF to do everything and the JFF is powerless without financing, and that’s been their crux over the years. Added to that, he has been the conduit to the private sector that the JFF has needed all these years.”

Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) First Vice-President and Harbour View FC President Stewart also hailed Chung’s impact on the federation’s finances but believes other areas needed work.

“Mainly in his financial areas, he seems to have brought it around because FIFA is now releasing the restriction they had on the financial support. So, that should be an indication that he has had some success [but] he would have had to inform himself completely and totally as to FIFA’s and Concacaf’s requirements and needs — not just in the financial areas but broadly — and I don’t know in those other areas that we’ve had that kind of direction that a gen sec is allowed to provide,” Stewart said.

“He has to guide, inform, and keep people knowing that these dates are not achieved or those objectives are not yet done, so it’s difficult to assess. I’m not close to it; I can only speak of the impact outside. And certainly in the respect to development, I don’t think we have made many advances or that there are any programmes that were put forward.”

While admitting that he doesn’t know if it was his responsibility, Stewart says the lack of progress with the grass roots programme was an area of weakness under Chung.

“I know that we haven’t had significant development of the youth programmes, and if we’re to go by the results, we have failed at all the youth endeavours at the Concacaf level, seeking to qualify for the World Cup. I don’t know if development comes under his portfolio or he would have to see and ensure that the development work was ongoing. I know he would have to link all the stuff together,” Stewart said.

James admits that Chung made some blunders during his time but says it shouldn’t overshadow the improvements he accomplished.

“Leadership has to come from somewhere, and I think he overstepped his bounds in a number of ways to the point of arrogance in dealing with certain issues that he shouldn’t have been at all — but that’s more on the leadership of the JFF than his own,” he said.

“You can’t argue the fact that he has made a substantial positive difference, despite errors that we’re all prone to — and some of them, tremendous errors — but you have to take the good with the bad, and his good far outweighs the few mistakes he did make.”

Stewart also believes Chung did the best he could despite the challenges he would have faced along the way.

“It’s not an easy seat to fill. He would have gone in with [his] staffing chart and requirements to satisfy [his] needs, and I don’t know if he was able to achieve that because I know funding was difficult originally, with FIFA hanging on to purse strings and saying you have to be better and so [on],” he said.

“It’s difficult to assess because I don’t know what their objective was for him and his general mandate. Sometimes I think some gen secs have too much free reign and at other times some don’t have enough, so I don’t know what their mandate was to him and what he was to achieve,” Stewart added.

It’s believed that Chung’s leaving could be made official following his return from Paraguay for a FIFA Congress at which he is in attendance with JFF President Michael Ricketts.