No-confidence vote doomed | Sports

PRESIDENT OF the St Ann Football Association, Danny Beckford, will be adding to the calls for Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) President Michael Ricketts to resign, with an attempt to pass a motion of no-confidence at the organisation’s next board meeting.

Beckford’s plan is against the background where the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association sent a letter to the JFF asking that the president resigns with a number of others voicing similar sentiments.

According to Beckford, getting the motion to a vote may be an eventuality the president cannot avoid.

“At the next board meeting there will be a call for no-confidence of the president,” Beckford said.

“From my standpoint, if I call for a no-confidence and say KSAFA seconds the motion, that means it is on the table.

“If it comes down to a vote and they defeat the motion, we will know who is circling the wagon around the goodly gentleman and who has the good sense to tell him to go.

“But more or less there will be a no-confidence motion on the table. We will debate it and then it might go to a vote,” he said.

While Beckford isn’t confident that a no-confidence vote would be successful, there is a bigger picture to consider.

“He might still have a big majority, but the longer he stays it is the worse for our football. So we are leaning towards that and once we get it on the table it might come to a vote.

“Everything they put their hands on failed. We are hoping that the (senior) women buck the trend and qualify.

“But they only do things because it has to be done. There is a whole lot of things not happening. So we are going there with the intention to move that motion because he must leave,” said Beckford.

Beckford is right not to be optimistic about a successful no-confidence with many outside of St Ann and KSAFA, supporting the president.

Ansel Lee, president of the Central Kingston Football Club, who moved the motion at KSAFA’s annual general meeting (AGM) recently for the letter to be sent, said many parish associations hold similar sentiments and should join the call for his signature.

However, James Pearson, president of the St Mary Football Association, and Wayne Thompson, president of the St Thomas Football Association, are firmly behind the president.

SUPPORT AND DEVELOP

Pearson argues that the World Cup qualifying failure is not reason enough to demand Ricketts’ resignation and that the JFF chief is doing unprecedented work to support and develop parish associations.

“As far as St Mary is concerned, we have no issue with the president and we are not calling for his resignation in any way, shape or form. I have consulted with my board and they are in full support of Michael Ricketts as president of the JFF.

“These calls are baseless and I will say it again, the St Mary FA is 150 per cent in support of Michael Ricketts as president of the JFF. He has done nothing for us to call for his resignation,” he said.

He pointed that it is not the first time that the team has failed to qualify for the World Cup and that it has never led to the call for a president to resign.

“Some things that have never happened before, are happening under Michael Ricketts. The JFF now has a strategic plan and that has never happened before and it is happening under Michael Ricketts.

“He has been supporting parish associations since he has been in office and the level of support he has given parish associations, we have never gotten before,” he said.

“None of us are perfect. There are going to be shortcomings with the best of us in the best of times. There are shortcomings with every sporting organisation in Jamaica. There’s no perfection in any of them and the JFF is not immune to that,” he continued.

“If I feel the President should go then we would look at it and have discourse and make a decision.

“When the time comes for him to demit office, he will do so, but the St Mary Football Association will not support a call for his resignation. I am not on that bandwagon,” he insisted.

Thompson of St Thomas admits that the administration has got some things wrong but he believes efforts should not be focused on getting Ricketts to resign, but instead on supporting him and strengthening the federation.

“I want to make it clear that our (St Thomas FA) focus is really not on the president. We have spent many years focusing on presidents and it has allowed our football to suffer significantly.

“We are trying to strengthen the organisation because every organisation needs strengthening.

ROOT PROBLEM

“In our minds that is the real issue, that is the root problem. So no matter which president takes over, we are going to have the same issues, as we did with Captain (Horace Burrell),” he said.

He said they do recognise there are serious problems based on the many negative media reports. However, he insists they must try to deal with these issues in a positive way.

“Every time things are coming out in the media, which shows there is a lot of work we have to do.

“And I am not saying that the matter of concerns from the stakeholders are not rightly so, but we want to focus our efforts on strengthening the organisation

“We have made mistakes but as a parish association, we are trying to help in whatever we can. So my executive is not focusing on trying to remove Mr Ricketts. We are trying to understand the problem and see how we can help in a positive way. And we have confidence in the organisation,” he reasoned.

He added that. “There are issues we need to work on or we are going to get left behind in a big way. But if we change Mr Ricketts as a president I guarantee we will face the same challenges.

“What we need to do is really get behind him and give him the best shot to create a renewed organisation.”

St Elizabeth FA president, Patrick Malcolm, said the matter was due to come up at their board meeting this week, and that he would be unable to state their position on the matter until then.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com