 Yeah, football is where we begin on the Sports Mag Zone for this Thursday. After weeks of uncertainty and contention, a date has finally been set for the voting Congress to elect a new executive body at the Jamaica Football Federation. Following an emergency meeting on Wednesday, the JFF Board decided on January 14, 2024 as the election date. In common, President Michael Bricketts is expected to be challenged by current vice-president Raymond Anderson. In recent weeks, Anderson's team has expressed frustration at what they describe as poor communication from the JFF, arguing that the election is constitutionally due in 2023. They have repeatedly pointed out that a six-day election notice is necessary. The first 15 of those days are to be used for nominations. They have further argued that the Bricketts administration is operating unconstitutionally since its four-year term officially ended in September of this year. Also at Wednesday's emergency meeting, the JFF accepted three of the seven pillars, affiliates, as being eligible to vote. Those are the Past Players Association, the Beach Football Association, and the Jamaica Coaches Association. JFF General Secretary Dennis Chong has said that the professional Football Jamaica Limited PFGL is said to be the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association, Intercal and the Referees Association have until the 20th of December to be duly registered with the JFF. Chong has also said that the January 14 election date was to ensure no party was left disenfranchised. As we continue to track the happenings around this highly contentious JFF election, we are joined by President of the Harbourview Football Club, chairman of the Harbourview Football Club, Carville Stewart. And of course, Carville Stewart has served in many other areas of football in the land of wooden water. And in recent years, he was also vice chairman of the Premier League Clubs Association, a body which is no longer in operation, of course. Carville Stewart, it's a pleasure to have you on the Sports Mic Zone. How are you doing this afternoon? I'm fine. Thank you for having me and good afternoon to you and the viewers. Yeah, for sure. Let's get the ball rolling whistle and all. January 14, the date put forward for the voting Congress to elect the next president of the Jamaica Football Federation and by extension the executive body. What are thoughts on the date selected, especially against the background that the Raymond Anderson team has been contending that the election is due constitutionally in 2023? Yeah, well, the view now on our part is that the extensive strategizing and planning and maneuvering to create unfair advantages to them has led to this date of the 14th of January. The question now is whether or not, certainly the constitution doesn't allow for that. However, they will make decisions that may be refutable later on. The main person that they should be cautious of here though is FIFA. Whether or not FIFA was invested in an election happening in 2023 and therefore may take other action if they view this to be incorrect. Looking at what has been said so far by Dennis Chung, the general secretary of the Jamaica Football Federation, he's essentially hinted that there is no undue delay and so there should be no concern from a FIFA standpoint. I am not sure of that. There has been undue delay. The persons in place now, their tenure would have ended at around about the 14th of September this year and therefore efforts should have been made to have an election in time to have a fully operational executive starting the 15th of September 2023. They did not do that. They also ensured that in terms of the 60-day requirement of the constitution that 60 days would have expired sometime in January because they had not planned to name an election date before now. They rolled out a myriad of excuses as they always do and you would have noted over the years with all the incompetent practices and outcomes that have happened. They have had excuses and this is just another one. Dennis Chung has said that they came to this decision because if they had the election in 2023, the pillar 3 affiliates would not be able to vote. None of the pillar 3 affiliates would have been able to vote had they gone ahead and had the election in 2023. I also want to get your thoughts on only 3 of the 7 pillar 3 affiliates given clearance as of now to be part of the voting process and the others which we named at the top of this segment having until the 20th of December to get themselves duly registered with the JFF. Ricardo, all of that is just machinations on their part. Their ability to include that group in pillar 3 and let me say here now, pillar 3 was required by FIFA to ensure the broader and wider participation of football stakeholders in the JFF and hence this is why you have these groups being recognized and recognized in the constitution that was agreed on in December of 2022. However, it is only in recent weeks or days that they have notified some of these groups asking that they submit information that the people would have been totally unaware of because the constitution was never shared with any of them formally. Now the JFF set out a package of requirements for them to answer to and so groups found themselves submitting information and then being told later on that the amount of information is insufficient and as we sit here today, there is still not a listing of the full requirements issued to the pillar 3 people but really for emphasis, pillar 3 is to expand the participation of football stakeholders within the JFF and I say that because it leads to the selections that they have made also. Yeah, I'm glad you went there because relating to pillar 3 and we look at the bodies that have been approved as of now to be part of the voting congress, the past players association, there is the beach football association which as far as we understand was set up by Bruce Gaynor, a current vice president and who is expected to be on the slate of Michael Ricketts and there is also Patrick Malcolm, a board member and then the Jamaica coaches association which was set up by Rudolf Speed, who again is expected to be part of the Michael Ricketts slate for the January 14 election process. Your own thoughts on that specifically? Okay, of the three, the only real and legitimate group is the past players association, been in operation for years and have represented the interests of a number of individuals in addition to the group at large. The other two are fabrications, they and also fabrications that go against the fee for tenants that pillar 3 was to broaden the participation of football stakeholders. They both organizations were appropriately registered in the month of October, one earlier than the other. The beach football is headed by Bruce Gaynor as you pointed out, Malcolm and another who is an employee of the JFF. Now if that is not conflict of interest, you tell me what is, one, two, none of them, not one of them has ever participated in beach football, whether at the player level, at the administrative level, at no time were they ever involved, they set up a group and registered it somewhere on the 17th of October and have now chosen that group. Now what is the corollary to that group? The other group is the Beach Soccer Association. That is what the beach football is called formally and those people have the right name because they have been involved over 15 years, some were involved in the inaugural establishment of beach football under the sponsorship of Red Stripe and I know Pat Geryl was one of those, Andrew Price has been the national coach of every beach ball team that we have put out to represent Jamaica and there are others there who operated the management of beach football. Beach football, Beach Soccer can show you current correspondence where they maintain relationships with Beach Soccer around the world and had they been made aware of the requirements of the JFF, they would have established their due diligence and pursued their due diligence long ago when they were eventually made aware, which is after they applied for membership, they were then told about all these things that are required and the claim is that they did not submit any information or sufficient information and so were ruled out in favour of an organization that has never been involved in beach football. Before you go to the coaches Carvel, given what you have just said in terms of how the beach football association was set up when there was a beach soccer association already in place, can this be challenged by the Raymond Anderson led party or any other that decides that they want to put themselves before the election? It is being challenged and you may see a letter in circulation or may not have seen it from Beach Soccer Association and they have included in their subjects to which the letters are addressed, they have included FIFA, Pankakov and CFU. So they are not sitting down and accepting this publication that has taken place. Again, I have always, it is not just incompetence, it is corruption. They are corrupting the electoral process and it needs to stop. So you want me to go to the coaches now? Yes. The major conflict here is that Rudolf Speed is a board member, technical committee chairman and every one of the coaches that he has listed as members are employed to the GFF. If not everyone, 95% of them are. Now, who, if I am an employee, who am I going to vote for? This should not be allowed to stand. Conversely, Vin Blaine incorporated and has had the real and true coaches association for many years now. He has in fact educated most, if not all of the coaches that are now working for the GFF. He has maintained webinars throughout wherever he is working on the ground, he has maintained coaching seminars for coaches here in Jamaica. Certainly, Casafa has one maybe every month or maybe less frequent, but we do get, if it's not Vin, it's some other colleague of his that he has encouraged and engaged to present webinars, coaching webinars and I think one is due soon. So this again must be objected to and we are looking forward to hearing more details from Vin on this and Vin is another of the group that was not given any information about the requirements of the GFF and any response you get to me is going to constitute falsehoods in respect to the information that they were seeking from these people. Now remember, these groups were included in the constitution. Yeah, Carvel, the other groups, the ISSA Intercal Referes Association, PFGL, I'm trying to understand why those groups at this stage would not be considered as part of the Jamaica Football Federation. They're using the same absence of information in order to say they are justifying their non-inclusion. But can you imagine ISSA being nominated in the constitution, not being allowed to participate at the GFF under any circumstance? Intercal is also another one, right? And the same thing, Intercal never even got a request from them for information. Never got a request for information. You mentioned, help me here. Referees Association and TFGL. Referees Association. Peter Prendegas has submitted his company, which was established some years ago, and was the major referees group nationally. In order to object to that, we know that they were trying to organize a group of referees who all are involved and are working in current national competitions and are related directly to the GF. And so these kinds of improper corrupt practices must be called out for what they are and must stop. There was one at the association, it was the under association PFGL, professional football Jamaica Limited. Can you imagine PFGL, a construct of the GF, cannot be included now for whatever reason? I was around when the company was registered, and I'm aware of who the original shareholders are, and I knew of the GF effort to bring this new organization into operation. I don't know why. I know that they were not required to submit information until maybe a couple of days ago. And when we spoke to them last night, they said it's true they had not yet submitted anything, because they just got the requirements for submission. Yeah, well the GF effort said they have until the 20th of December to make those submissions, which is now the cutoff to become eligible to vote on the 14th of January. Yeah, and I'll cover before we go, I just want to... Good to see you. Yeah, Bon. All right, I just wanted to confirm what you mentioned just now about the beat soccer letter that a very comprehensive and detailed letter complaining of being disenfranchised, and they have copied CFU, Konkakaf and FIFA, so we expect to hear more about that. But can you tell me about the FIFA consultant that is with the JFF at the moment in office initially contracted to oversee the financial difficulties the JFF is experiencing? But doesn't he have any governance issues on his portfolio as well? Because how could the JFF be doing all of this, which you are saying is breaching the constitution, and a FIFA representative is in the office as a representative of FIFA to ensure that things are done properly? I'm a little lost there. As best I understand it, Lance, he's only responsible for financial matters and seeing to it that hopefully we are brought back into line. It seems unlikely with the current group, they don't seem to know, because they've been at it now for five, almost six years of restricted financing, and they can't get it right. It has meant the loss of over three million US dollars to Jamaica's football. People have never been faced with the fact of the amount of money that these people have lost Jamaica's football. It's three million dollars over five years, and if six years are completed, it would be 3.6 million dollars. I'm a little concerned before you go, Carvel, that you have so explicitly outlined what you consider huge breaches here from the JFF. And this process seems to be going ahead full steam, and the JFF is behaving as if they are on a good course. And I'm not hearing the kind of backlash that probably needs to happen if it is that your position is correct. Lance, I made it my point of duty to, and one of our members in the group that is supporting Raymond's campaign, put a document in that outlined in great detail the recent normalizations of FIFA. And the majority of normalizations have been electoral malpractice by the national member. And so I believe that they should, I don't think they've read that document. I think they should apprise themselves of the content of that document and maybe change the approach that they're taking with these falsehoods that they're putting out there, and these fabricated organizations, because it could lead to normalization, which I do not want for Jamaica. Carvel, in 15 seconds, how close do you Carvel Stuart, having read that document, think that Jamaica's football is to normalization? Very close in respect to the activities around the election, both in terms of the delay of the election, and now fabricating normalizations to be members of the in the election. And as you can see, it's all total conflicts of interest, which FIFA is not going to look kindly at. Carvel Stuart, chairman of the Harborview Football Club. Thank you very much for joining us on the Sports Mike Zone today. We really appreciate it, and we really appreciate how you have broken down the issues for us today. And I'm pretty sure that we'll be in touch again throughout the course of the next couple of months as we head up to January 14th. If indeed, January 14th does happen. Thanks Carvel. If it isn't brought forward, thank you for having me. Or that we take a break, but back with more on the Sports Mike Zone.