Anderson’s team facing major concerns ahead of JFF elections
Published:Monday | January 8, 2024 | 12:11 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) presidential candidate Raymond Anderson says he expected more from a meeting both contenders had with the electoral committee last Friday.
Anderson pointed out that even before Friday’s sit-down, his team has been writing to the committee responsible for overseeing the JFF election process, seeking their intervention in some of the concerns they have raised regarding the disenfranchisement of some organisations in the pillar three voting block, among other issues.
He now says that they intend to launch an appeal before Sunday’s elections, set for Rusea’s High School in Lucea, Hanover, with the JFF appeals committee after a lack of response from the electoral committee.
“We have been writing to the electoral committee from October about all our concerns - the disenfranchising of the organisations, illegal signatures, conflict of interest, and corruption in all aspects of the election. We have expressed all our concerns, and based on that, we thought that this meeting would present some form of clarity, but it was not so,” he said.
“We still tried to get some of our concerns across, but we still didn’t get answers to them,” he commented.
He said with the window to the election closing fast, a response from the electoral committee would speed up their chance for an appeal to the JFF appeals committee.
“We haven’t gotten a response. We just got a letter stating the obvious. However, we are days away from the election, and we still have concerns, and we have nowhere to go because the electoral committee is not responding to us.
“We saw them in the flesh in the meeting and raised the questions. We got some answers, but they are not acceptable,” he lamented.
“So we are putting together our documents to appeal. We are following the procedure, and we are going to appeal to the JFF appeals committee. That’s our next stop. So by tomorrow (today), we should have that in. We will send it to them and also the secretariat,” Anderson said.
He said the Real Solid Action team is deeply disappointed with with how the election process has unfolded to this point and the response from the electoral committee. Nevertheless, he believes that by doing things the right way, justice will eventually prevail.
“I believe in the process, and I am hoping that good sense will prevail. If they ignore the constitution we have spent so much time putting together then there could be other ways for recourse. It might be after the election, but I believe in the process, and that is where my head space is.
“This is not about winning at all costs. It is about justice and clarity, all the right things that are supposed to be done based on the constitution, and I want to be on the right side of history in terms of following the process,” Anderson said.
He added that although the chances of them getting a favourable response from the appeals committee may appear remote, they are just ensuring that they cover all their bases.
“Based on what has been happening, it is a 60/40 chance - 40 per cent on our side that they may hear our appeal - but we really have to take that chance because we don’t want them to say that we didn’t follow the process.
“So that when it falls to FIFA or Concacaf, we haven’t missed the procedure. So we intend to follow everything all the way to the top,” he declared.
Anderson is seeking to unseat current President Michael Ricketts at next Sunday’s elections.