Editorial | JFF in guardianship

It is just shy of a month since Michael Ricketts was re-elected to his second full, four-year term as president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF).

If he completes it, Mr Ricketts will have occupied the position for a decade. He completed the last two years of the term of the late Captain Horace Burrell, who died in 2017.

Feeling himself “vindicated” by his re-election, the wise thing for Mr Ricketts to now do – which, unfortunately, he will not – is convince the members of the JFF to dissolve the body, paving the way for the creation of the new organisation to oversee football in Jamaica.

He should also pledge not to offer himself for any leadership role in the new body, whose constitution should similarly preclude anyone who held office in the old JFF from serving in the new organisation for a decade and a half.

As a gesture of appreciation for this action, Mr Ricketts would be named to some emeritus or honorary position in the new JFF (which would be called something else) and be afforded all courtesies at its functions, including at international football matches involving Jamaica’s national teams.

We have made this suggestion for two reasons.

The most important is that Jamaica needs a well-managed organisation to end the culture of systemic inefficiency and entitlement that encrusts the JFF, and so ensure the emergence of a body sufficiently competent to unshackle the development of Jamaica’s football.

Second, there is a sense that Mr Ricketts misread why he defeated Raymond Anderson by a two-to-one margin in the presidential election, and more importantly, why, notwithstanding the high decibel and the breathlessness of his campaign – and his attempt to make it a national affair – Mr Anderson’s candidacy never caught the imagination of Jamaicans.

CRITICAL MISSING ELEMENT

With respect to the contenders, Mr Ricketts seems convinced that his 39-17 defeat of Mr Anderson among the JFF’s delegates was reward for his work during his time in office.

He said: “I was torn down. They knelt in my neck. I was treated like an outcast. I was disrespected, but my work has been vindicated today.”

That, at a stretch, may be part of the answer with respect to the JFF delegates. But there is a critical missing element in Mr Ricketts’ analysis: his opponent – and how this framed the election from a national perspective.

Jamaicans, by and large, are heavily invested in football. Most harbour ambitions for Jamaica as a globally competitive footballing nation, akin to the island’s status in international track and field athletics. They hanker for good and transparent leadership to achieve this.

If the potential for that level of transcendental governance was on show in the JFF election, the delegates would have felt a national pressure to choose a truly transformative leader. That did not happen.

Instead, they had Mr Anderson, a bluff personality, with characteristics and campaign style of an old-fashioned politician on the hustings. So, J$350 million was awaiting his victory, he claimed, to be invested in football.

But Mr Anderson served for years as Mr Ricketts’ deputy and did not appear to have noticed the president’s failings, or incompetence of the regime which he was a part of, until he decided to challenge for the top job. He offered no really big vision for the JFF.

Almost everyone else noticed.

NEEDS A NEW START

On the other hand, whatever he was, or is not, Mr Ricketts has a mild and inoffensive persona, for which people tend to feel a mild sympathy, even when things perennially go wrong.

The danger, often, for this personality type is that they, too, may come to believe that it was not their fault.

If indeed Mr Ricketts is one of these personalities, he must quickly shake himself of this sense of victimhood; of feeling that there are knees upon his neck.

He must also quickly come to terms with the fact that he is no Captain Burrell. He has neither charisma nor charm to convince State and private players into supporting his idea of greatness for Jamaican football, or by force of will to champion the island’s path to a World Cup.

Jamaica’s football needs a foundation upon which to build. And it needs a new start.

Mr Ricketts will not do as we suggest and disband the JFF.

In the circumstance, the next best thing is for him to invite independent stakeholders – including integrity and accountability watchdog entities – to act as guardians and peer reviewers of the JFF, without being responsible for operations.

So, for the rest of Mr Ricketts’ term in guardianship, the JFF would periodically report on its actions to its informal trustees or stewards, until the federation demonstrates that it should be weaned from this oversight.

Such an arrangement, properly devised and managed, need not be in conflict with the JFF’s obligations to FIFA, the world’s governing body for football.