RESPECTED football lawyer Andrew Werners has expressed frustration with what he describes as the slow pace of registration of several international players to clubs in the Jamaica Premier League (JPL).

Werners, who represents St Lucian players Vino Barclett, who played for Cavalier SC, and Melvin Doxilly, who represented Mount Pleasant FA, says the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) has been dragging its feet in processing the players’ registrations with Jamaica Premier League leaders Montego Bay United.

Werners is a Canadian-Dutch Caribbean international football lawyer based in Toronto, Canada. He is a former legal counsel to the World Leagues Association and the Canadian Soccer Players Association, and is the founder and principal of Pitchside Sports Consulting, a football regulatory advisory operating across Canada, the Caribbean, and the wider Concacaf region.

He told the Sunday Observer that the firm advises players, clubs, leagues, agents, and federations on FIFA regulations, dispute-resolution frameworks, and governance compliance, and is not a player agency.

Both players, Werners told the Observer recently, were “free agents” having “de-registered with their former clubs”, but the JFF had not submitted the registrations through the FIFA Transfer Matching System (TMS), months after the requests were made.

The Observer reached out to FIFA TMS manager and JFF competitions head Ian Kemble but received no response.

Werners, who said he had filed a protest with FIFA, cited Article 14 of the FIFA Code (Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players), which “allows either party (player or club) to terminate a contract with ‘just cause’ without penalties, such as compensation or sporting sanctions”.

He said players are allowed to terminate contracts after giving default notice to the clubs.

Additionally, Werners said the hold-up was affecting several national federations. In addition to Barclett and Doxilly, there is a third case involving a player from Suriname who is being denied playing time at club level, preventing him from getting match-ready for the FIFA Inter-Continental play-offs in March.

Suriname, like Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz, have another chance at qualifying for the FIFA World Cup later this year. After failing to earn a spot through Concacaf qualifying, they will contest the FIFA Inter-Continental play-offs and face South American team Bolivia in the first round, with the winner set to play Iraq for a place in the World Cup.

“The JFF is failing to put the registrations through the TMS,” Werners said. “The players are free agents; they have no affiliations as they have de-registered from their previous clubs.

“The JFF must respect their contractual obligations with FIFA. They have to abide by FIFA rules.”

Barclett, who has been training with Montego Bay United, began his registration process in October, the Observer has learned, after cutting ties with Cavalier SC in July.

Former Cavalier FC and St Lucia goalkeeper Vino Barclett (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Football lawyer Andrew Werners